


Best Laid Plans

by rants_skellington



Category: Saints Row
Genre: AU, Multi, and all the other guys too, i feel weirdly bad about tagging so many characters but everyone is in it, i swear to god there arent any love triangles, its most Johnny tho its a Johnny story, yeah look ok im bad at tagging im sorry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-02
Updated: 2016-05-19
Packaged: 2018-03-10 02:39:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 40,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3273662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rants_skellington/pseuds/rants_skellington
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[UNFINISHED. NO INTENTION OF FINISHING.] [AU inspired by the retcon ending of Gat Out of Hell]. Johnny Gat is a lieutenant in the Stilwater PD. After the murder of the Police Chief at the hands of the Third Street Saints, Johnny is placed undercover in the gang to investigate from the inside. As the Saints battle with the new gangs invading Stilwater, Johnny tries to find out what actually happened, not get caught, and figure out what the fuck is going on with the "charmingly roguish" Boss. No one's telling the truth, nothing adds up, and Johnny's not the only one with warped loyalties and something to hide.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Job Offer You Never Knew You Wanted

**Author's Note:**

> Best Laid Plans is also available on my [tumblr!](http://saints-row-2.tumblr.com)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Johnny gets a job offer he doesn't actually want, regardless of what the title of the chapter implies

            Another shot hit him in the shoulder and he couldn’t help but hope it would someone would hear, but he knew it wasn’t likely. A million gunshots a minute in Stilwater. No one was going to take notice. He supposed, with a sick kind of humour, that he’d failed them all, really. He’d done what he could, but in the end, it wasn’t enough. Wasn’t even enough for him not to be meeting his end in the back of a dirty alleyway, with someone he used to consider not exactly a  _friend_  but certainly an  _ally_  the one pulling the trigger. How many bullets had he taken for them now? This was just two more.

            He couldn’t stop himself from falling. It wasn’t a slow, almost graceful buckle of the knee. It was a heavy thump down onto wet cardboard and other people’s garbage. They still hadn’t put the gun away. They weren’t satisfied. Swaying where they stood but still a crack shot. Things were getting very dark now, and the sky was threatening to break open above his head. He still didn’t consider himself a traitor, regardless of what others had said. He’d done the right thing. He was so sure of that. He’d done the right thing.

            There was a third shot, and he didn’t get to see the rain start to fall.

* * *

            When their youngest child was seven, the Gat family had some luck. Better jobs and a promotion led to them coming into some money. There was a house in Downtown that was within their price range. Suddenly they had the chance to not live in Saint’s Row anymore, which was an easy decision to make. And with that, they moved, and their son- Johnny to his friends, John to parents, Brat to his sister and _Juh-oohhh-nneeee_ to the little girl next door with whom he fought incessantly and secretly adored- said goodbye to Saints Row. He would not live there again. Not by choice.

            Johnny grew up with a hair-trigger temper and love of violence that concerned his teachers, but the kind of loyalty and honesty that made his parents proud. He grew up dedicated and fierce and he never stopped adoring the girl who used to live next door, although they never stopped fighting either. Johnny Gat grew up to be a man who his friends loved and his enemies despised and he grew up to be part of Stilwater PD. And when a street gang formed in 2006 out of old anger and ego, Johnny didn’t hear about it until people started ringing 911. It was nothing to do with him, after all. Why would it be? He wasn’t from the Row. Not really.

            But at that moment he was in the Row, in Harrowgate, walking down the corridor with the broken ceiling light that led to the interrogation rooms. Stilwater Police Department Headquarters had been in better shape. The Chief kept saying they didn’t have the funding to run it in perfect condition, but they had the funding to spend money on fucking fancy trophies to put in the lobby and shiny plaques over the Chief’s parking spot. Whatever. It wasn’t something Johnny was willing to fight about. He’d realised that working here and not killing everyone in the building took a certain amount of knowing when to pick his battles. It was certainly a skill he’d gotten better at after a few years in the precinct.

            Kinzie and Matt were waiting for him behind the one-way glass of the interrogation room. They were two of the only people in the station he liked, and both of them were smarter than the rest of the station combined. The rest of the _state_ police combined. He didn’t know why the fuck they were working for the cops, a super genius eighteen year old and an ostensibly ex-FBI agent, but Johnny had never really bothered to ask. They did something to do with computers and surveillance and they’d come as a package deal. Two-for-one sale on geeks that had landed the Stilwater PD with a small but incredibly efficient computer forensics team. Used to be in some place called Steelport until they’d needed to leave. That was all he knew and all he cared to know.

            “We’ve been waiting for you,” Matt said. “So’s she.”

            _She_ referred to Brimstone, AKA Micah García, AKA one of the leaders of the Devil’s Seven, a gang which contained a lot more than seven people. Johnny considered the name kind of a misnomer in that respect, although he had been told he was missing the point of the title. He had long since stopped caring. The fact there was _another_ gang in Stilwater was the only thing worth focusing on. There was three of them now, which was roughly four too many in Johnny’s opinion.

            “Good,” Johnny said. “Let her stew.” He was actually itching to get in there and make her spill, but if you couldn’t pretend to be cool in front of your friends, what was the point of them? Matt hero-worshipped him already and he was in no rush to break the kid out of that habit. He’d never been a believer in false modesty.

            “Not for too long,” Kinzie said. “Her gang is going to find out we arrested her soon enough and they aren’t going to be happy.”

            “Eh, you can handle that,” Johnny said, taking the file from Matt and heading into the interrogation room.

            Brimstone had red hair and dark eyes and a look on her face like was ready to slit throats. Johnny was almost glad she was handcuffed. She wasn’t happy to see him, wrinkling her nose when he sat in the chair opposite, pretending to peruse her file before he looked at her. Give her the impression she was barely worth his time. Knocking her down a peg or two didn’t seem like such a bad idea.

            “So,” Johnny said. “Why let yourself get caught now?”

            “It’s safer here,” Brimstone said. He hadn’t really been expecting that. She didn’t look like someone who was easily frightened. She didn’t say it as a person in fear either, she said it with defeat.

            “Safer?” Johnny said. “Safer from who?”

            “Safer from the Saints,” she said.

            “The Saints.”

            “The Third Street Saints.”

            “Yeah, I’ve heard of them. They’re a bunch of clowns in purple outfits.”

            “They killed my brother.”

            That gave him some pause. She was still stone-faced and cold and he wasn’t convinced there wasn’t some kind of trap in this. Powerful gang leaders didn’t just give in and turn themselves in because they were _scared_ , not when they had formed with the _intention_ of directly challenging the current ruling gang. Her cowardice seemed false to Johnny, but he had no reason to suspect that other than a ‘gut feeling’, which he knew Kinzie would roll her eyes at.

            “You wanna tell me about where you’ve been trafficking drugs from?” Johnny said.

            “No,” Brimstone said. “I don’t have to tell you _anything_.”

            “That’s interesting,” Johnny said. “Because the way I see it, you’re going to spill, and soon.”

            “Are you kidding?” She said. “Why would I do that? I _wanted_ to be arrested. What are you going to threaten me with? Jail time?”

            “I could have you released,” Johnny said, shrugging casually, looking back at the file as though he was looking at something real interesting.

            “You’d be sending me to my death,” she said. “You can’t do that. I’ve been involved in drug trafficking. There, I’ve confessed.”

            “Confession doesn’t mean anything if we don’t have evidence.”

            “You _have_ evidence. That’s why you wanted to arrest me.”

            “Do we?”

            Brimstone went pale. It was a hollow threat, but _she_ didn’t know that. Everyone knew the Stilwater PD were crooked. She didn’t have to know she was dealing with one of the only decent officers in the building. And she wasn’t going to find out, not in the next five minutes.

            “You can’t do that,” she said, hissing through gritted teeth. She’d had her teeth sharpened to points.

            “I can do a lot of things.”

            “Fuck you. I can’t believe this. What kind of cop doesn’t want to catch criminals?”

            “Lady, you are one piece of a much bigger set. And I want to get the _whole_ collection.”

“I can give you info on the Saints,” she said hopefully.

            Gat shook his head. “I’m not working on a case against the Saints,” he said. “I don’t give a fuck about the Saints. I want information on the Devil’s Seven. I’m not interested in bargaining.”

            “That’s not fair,” Brimstone said.

            “What are you, six? I don’t care about being _fair_.” Matt was tapping on the window of the interrogation room door. Gat waved him away. “I care about putting people behind bars.”

            “And the Saints aren’t worth locking up?” Brimstone said, with a note of desperation. “They aren’t like any other gang. They’re _fucked_. They didn’t just kill my brother nice and simple, y’know. They filled his motorbike with goddamn _explosives_ and when he tried to crawl away they _beheaded_ him. They’re all fucking sadists.”

           Matt was still knocking on the door. Johnny tried to ignore him.

           “They blew up his motorbike,” he said. Brimstone nodded. She still looked like she wanted to murder him with his own glasses but she looked tired, too. Matt thumped the door a few more times.

           “Excuse me,” he said with some irritation. Brimstone looked as angry as he felt.

            He headed out of the room, slamming the door behind him. Matt tried to look apologetic.

            "The Chief wants to see you,” Matt said. “Now.”

            “I’m in the middle of a fucking interrogation!” Johnny said.

            “I tried to explain that but it didn’t really work,” Matt said. “You better head over there.”

            Johnny bit back on his anger, because it wasn’t _Matt’s_ fault, and he walked up to the Chief’s office, passing by the memorial photograph on the wall outside the office. It was still draped in black ribbons and it gave Johnny pause whenever he looked at it. He’d never trusted the last Chief, never liked the man particularly- he was just as corrupt as any Stilwater Police Chief- but _everyone_ in the precinct had hated him. And in that Johnny felt some kind of strange solidarity. As much as he’d never liked him and avoided extending a friendly hand, he’d never thought the corruption was for the money, or for the power. It all felt like some awful failed attempt to do the right thing. And it had gotten him a bullet in head.

            Johnny pushed open the door to the Chief’s office without bothering to knock and walked in on Chief Forester having a pleasant conversation with Mayor Hughes. Forester smiled at him in a way that looked like someone was holding up the corners of his mouth with bits of string tied around either end of his hideous moustache. He stood up very suddenly, waving his hands out like he was gesturing to the pièce de résistance of a parade of furious police lieutenants.

            “Just the man I wanted to see!” Forester said.

            “Yeah, you called for me,” Gat said. “I was in the middle of an-”

            “Lieutenant Gat, this is Mayor Hughes, but you know _that_ ,” Forester said in a voice that made Johnny feel slightly nauseous. “Hughes, this is Lieutenant Gat. He’s been working tirelessly on building a case against the street gang The Devil’s Seven. Just today he took in one of the leaders!”

            Hughes said nothing, but gave Johnny a small nod and a tight smile. She looked a lot younger than she had done three years ago.

            “And seeing how successful he’s been, we decided that he was the best candidate to use in our undercover operation against the Third Street Saints,” Forester said.

            “Yes, you mentioned you’ve been planning this operation for some weeks now,” Hughes said. “I’m assuming that the care you’ve been taking with it is the reason that so little progress has been made in finding Troy’s killer?”

            “Of course,” Forester said. “You can’t just rush into an undercover operation. You need a certain kind of training, you need the right officer. And we all knew that Lieutenant Gat was the man for the job. You couldn’t hope to find a more dedicated or loyal officer.”

            Johnny wasn’t quite sure what the hell was going on, finding himself standing and staring at Forester with his mouth hanging open like a fucking fool. Had he missed a memo or sixty? The last he’d heard the Stilwater PD’s approach to the Saints was still crumpling up reports and filing them neatly into the trash. He was about to find the words to ask what Forester was talking about when the Chief stood and- horrifyingly- grabbed Johnny by the elbow.

            “Mayor Hughes, if you’ll excuse us just for one moment,” Forester said cloyingly, before he steered Johnny out of the office and shut the door behind them.

            “What the fuck is going on?” Johnny said.

            “Look,” Forester said, the sweetness from his speech gone in a snap second and replaced with the impatient snarl Johnny knew and loathed. “Hughes is breathing down my neck about catching Troy’s killer. I’ve told her that we’ve been planning an operation for weeks. You’re going undercover in the Saints. You’re off the Devil’s Seven case.”

            “I didn’t agree to this!” Johnny said.

            “You can take the Saints case,” Forester said, “or you can get out of my precinct. Do I make myself clear?”

            Johnny didn’t have a chance to respond before Forester shoved him back through the door of the office and in front of Hughes. He stood there, feeling somewhat humiliated, as Forester went back to preening and gloating to Hughes. The fact that Forester was partially talking about how great an officer _Johnny_ was felt completely meaningless- even if it was true- because in the end Forester didn’t believe a word coming out of his own mouth and Johnny couldn’t stop thinking about the photograph with the black ribbons.

* * *

            Telling Aisha was the bit Johnny was dreading. He loved her absolutely, but ‘not arguing’ was a skill they hadn’t mastered. He’d known her almost as long as he could remember, and he’d loved her just as long, but good  _God_ if they didn’t fight about everything and anything. She was a woman who did not give in and he was a man with a temper and they would throw tantrums about the pettiest shit you could imagine but- embarrassingly- she still made him weak. He loved that about her. The pull she had on him. Like they were just  _meant to be_ . He believed that, even if he never said it. He wasn’t sure he even told her he loved her enough, but she knew it. Some things didn’t  _need_ to be said.

            Regardless, telling her that he was going undercover for an indeterminate amount of time for a gang _she_ knew better than _he_ did wasn’t going to be a picnic. She’d grown up in the Row. He’d lived there for a while, when he was a kid, but he didn’t really remember it. She had been there when the Saints had arrived. She _knew_ them. Aisha had lived in the Row until the Saints had fallen apart. After that Gat somehow managed to talk her into moving in with him. Without them, there was going to be a power vacuum, and he didn’t want her right in the middle of what was going to be wanted territory. In the end Ultor bulldozered the whole thing and her house was replaced with a stack of luxury apartments so she wouldn’t have been able to stay much longer. But besides, he _wanted_ her to live with him. He loved her, or whatever.

            She’d carried on the music career. She was glad she’d never gotten suckered in to signing up to Kingdom Come Records after the Saints blew them to hell. Johnny had talked her out of it. He still wasn’t sure how that had happened. He’d probably lost his chance to win every argument they’d ever have in that one moment, but she was better off this way, so he was glad. He knew all about the Vice King’s relationship with the police and he didn’t want her getting involved in that. And she’d had it pretty great working as an independent artist. They still played her stuff on the radio, and she didn’t have to do what other people told her, which was probably one of her biggest pet peeves.

And Jesus Christ he was going to miss her. When he walked through the front door of their home in Tidal Spring and saw Eesh sitting on the couch talking money on the phone he almost got a real, actual lump in his throat. She smiled at him briefly before continuing to talk as he pulled off his coat and shoes, leaving them lying by the door.

            “You can tell him I’m not playing there until he pays me a good five hundred more,” she said, hanging up. The snarl in her voice almost made his heart flutter. “Johnny, how many time do I gotta tell you not to leave your shoes lying by the front door like that?”

            “How many times I gotta tell you I don’t give a shit about my shoes?” He said. She sighed and rolled her eyes but saw something in his face before she shot back.

            “What’s wrong?” She said.

            “Forester,” he began.

            She immediately interrupted. “That jackass again? When you going to replace that guy already? I’m telling you, I’m as sick of his shit as you are. You need to be through with him by yesterday.”

            “Yeah, you’re tellin’ me.” Johnny said. “He’s moved me off the Devil’s Seven and onto a new gang.”

            “What? Who? Those stupid meth heads in Elysian Fields? They’re barely a _gang_ , the Devil’s Seven have to be more worth your time than them!”

            “No, not the Vultures,” Gat said.

            “The Saints? You’re actually starting to fight the Saints?”

            “Yeah. Everyone’s losing their fuckin’ minds after Bradshaw bought it and Forester wants the Stilwater Butcher as a trophy kill. And apparently I’m the guy to turn to. I told him I didn’t want it but it’s not up to me. I _have_ to do it.”

            “You’ve been complaining about not getting to take down the Third Street Saints for _years_ , even before they came back. This is a golden opportunity.”

            “Yeah, not so much. I’m not just investigating Eesh, they want me undercover.”

            Aisha froze, looking at him in horrified silence for a long moment, before she managed to recover herself somewhat.

            “I knew Troy. He gave them everything, Johnny. And they _still_ killed him. They hunted him down and they murdered him.”

            “I know,” Johnny said.

            “I don’t want you do it,” she said, taking one of his hands in both of hers, intertwining her fingers with his.

            “ _I_ don’t want to do it,” he said.

            “So why are you?” She said.

            “Well,” Johnny said. “What kind of cop doesn’t want to catch criminals?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm super nervous about posting this, I haven't written any long-form fanfiction in a long time, and this is going to be a pretty substantial fic. I've been planning and working on building the AU since Gat Out of Hell was released and I'm really excited to be sharing it finally. Hopefully this chapter was an alright introduction! Not to toot my own horn but the second chapter is way better so, like, at least stick around for that. The third is pretty good too. The fourth's ok. Not sure about the fourth yet. I'll let you guys decide. I'm gonna go.


	2. You Find a Tape You Pin all Your Hopes and Dreams On

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Johnny is convinced by cheesy action movies that random coincidences happen for incredibly significant reasons

            _Click. Kzzt_. “Getting into the Saints was a fuckin’ cakewalk. They’re so desperate for new members they’re practically hanging up recruitment posters. The leader is a man called Julius Little and he really thinks he’s doing the right thing. He really believes it.” Too far back.

_Click. Clicked. Kzzt_. “-Dex is driving me up the fuckin’ wall, I swear to God if he tells me what Los means one more time-” _kzzt_ “-we’re struggling even to get the Row back, Julius won’t admit he’s way over his head. The Saints have been in business for almost a year now and still-” _Click. Clicked. Kzzt._ “-and now he’s dead.” _Kzzzt_.

            “Julius has a new golden child and they scare the shit out of me. I don’t know what they’re called and I have never heard them speak but they _won_ when they were canonized. You are not meant to _win_ when you get canonized. You’re meant to get the shit kicked out of you. They didn’t even have a piece when they joined but they cleared out a Carnales stronghold on their own in about three fuckin’ minutes. Julius thinks they’re going to turn things around for us. And I… I don’t know what to think.” _Kzzt_.

            “Lin’s undercover work in the Rollerz is going good, but the whole thing makes me nervous. Two years the Saints have been around and we still couldn’t stop _another_ gang from starting up. Still, I guess Playa is going to change that. I haven’t been able to find out a single thing about this kid. If they’re around much longer they’re going to run out of Stilwater. And then fuck knows what they’re going to do.”

_Click. Click click. Kzzt_.

“We killed Victor Rodriguez. I once saw the man take a bullet to a chest and walk it off but we took that asshole down. Hah ha! We killed him. We killed him and I lit a cigarette off that motherfucker’s burning body. Sweetest smoke I ever had.”

_Click. Click. Kzzt_.

              “Lin’s dead. That fuck, William Sharp, he killed her. Playa barely got out alive. They found out she was undercover and they killed her and _fuck_ if that doesn’t set a precedent. I have been here too damn long.”

_Click. Clicked. Kzzt_. 

             “Vice Kings tearin’ themselves apart. Anthony Green and Warren Williams killed Benjamin King and now they’re at war with each other. Guys are a couple of fuckin’ idiots but it’s better for us. Just sit back and watch them burn what’s left of Kingdom Come Records down around them.”

_Click. Click. Kzzzt. Click. Kzzzzzzt_.

             “I’m out. I’m fucking out. I’m bailing. Julius is bailing. I told him everything. They’re my _friends._ How was I supposed to turn on them like that? Like it’s easy? If they’re out now, Hughes’ll let them go and that’s the best we can fucking get.” 

             None of that was particularly uplifting, Johnny felt. He’d been going through the tapes Troy had made about his experiences in the Saints but it was two years’ worth of sarcasm and self-doubt. He’d not realised how snarky Bradshaw was. Or how conflicted. Gat sure as hell wasn’t going to let the same thing happen to him. First mistake had been staying there that long, second had been becoming best buddies with the gangsters he was rolling with. And third had been being such a baby about the whole thing.

             The door of the records room clicked open and Johnny looked up to see Matt hovering the doorway with an armful of laptops. Johnny didn’t know what he was up to and he wasn’t about to ask because he sure as hell wouldn’t understand. He was hardly computer illiterate but Matt was in a whole other league.

             “What are you doing?” Matt said.

             “Research,” Johnny said, rifling through the box of tapes in case one with ‘all the secrets of the Saints and how to defeat them’ would turn up.

             “I don’t know if any of that stuff is going to be worth anything,” Matt said. “All of the original members are dead or missing, except the Stilwater Butcher.”

             “Yeah, and I have no idea if any of these even mention them,” Johnny said. “Waste of time.”

             “I’ve been doing some research of my own,” Matt said, unceremoniously dumping the laptops on the table and opening one.

             “Anything good?” Johnny said, a little hopeful.

             “Well…” Matt said. “I managed to find out a little about two of the lieutenants. One of them I don’t have a full name for but the other two are Carlos Mendoza and Pierce Washington. Both of them have criminal records with a laundry list of petty crimes and both joined the Saints when they returned in 2013. Carlos was in jail at the exact same time as the Stilwater Butcher-”

             “Stop _calling_ them that, it’s _stupid_. Fuckin’ Stilwater Butcher. What are they, a superhero?”

             “Sorry Johnny. It looks like Carlos broke out with, uh, the leader of the Saints after they woke up from their coma. I don’t know when Pierce Washington joined but it looks like he’s in charge of the Saints’ casinos. The third lieutenant is a woman people call Shaundi but like I said, I haven’t been able to find anything about her, it’s probably not her real name…”

             “They were in a prison hospital for five years and no one identified them?”

             “There was no one _to_ identify them.”

             “Is this really all you got me?”

             “It looks like most of their money comes from the casinos and racketeering, as well as prostitution and drugs, but the Vultures and the Devil’s Seven are taking advantage of the drug trade since it’s always been the Saints’ weak spot… They’re involved in pretty much everything short of arms trafficking, which they’ve never really been able to get a foothold in… I guess that’s what really stopping them from going international. Good thing too, because God know what they’d be like if they were global…”

             Johnny wasn’t in the mood for idle speculation. He flung the box of tapes off the desk and onto the floor, watching them bounce and scatter across the hard concrete floor. It made him feel a little better, although in the long run it was a meaningless achievement. Matt stared at him and decided it was best not to comment.

             “Anyway, Kinzie’s been working on setting up a backstory for you. Johnny Gat the career criminal is almost ready to go,” Matt said.

             “I don’t get a codename?”

             “I tried to tell Kinzie you should have one like _Jack Power_ or… or _Franklyn Nyte_ but she said it wasn’t necessary and would lead to ‘other complications’.”

             “Franklyn Nyte? Matt, that’s from your stupid fuckin’ vampire show, you think no one’s gonna notice that?”

             “It was just an idea.”

             As smart and talented as he was, you couldn’t really forget Matt was just a kid under it all. A tremendously fucking dorky kid. It may have been nearly twenty years since Johnny was eighteen but he sure as hell didn’t remember being such a complete nerd. And he’d washed his hair more than once a fortnight, even if he had made some questionable choices about how it looked.

             He knocked some of the tapes aside with his foot, not bothering to pick them up. He noticed one that was unlabelled and immediately grabbed it, because an unmarked undated tape in a box of carefully recorded police evidence felt like it had to have some kind of significance. Maybe it had all the information on Troy’s murder and he’d get a commendation. Maybe it would just be blank. Regardless, it _felt_ important. He was about to put it in the tape recorder when Kinzie came in and he stopped short. He shoved the tape into his jacket pocket.

             “I finally got Forester to make me and Matt your handlers,” she said. “Had to twist his arm a little, but he finally gave in. He’s taking a real personal interest in this case.”

             “Yeah, fucking clearly,” Johnny said. “He’s sucking up to Hughes. I’m just a pawn in her revenge fantasy.”

             “That sounds like something you would enjoy,” Matt said.

             “Well,” Johnny said, feeling slightly better. “Kinda.”

             “Going into an undercover operation with no up-to-date information is basically going in completely blind,” Kinzie said. “It’s practically a death sentence.”

             “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Johnny said, feeling a lot worse.

             “Just being realistic here. It’s hard enough being undercover when you _do_ know anything about the people you’re going undercover with. The Saints are a complete void of information. We only have ten year old information and they _murdered_ the man who was undercover collecting it, after he’d been off the case for eight years. Even if you didn’t get killed undercover, they’d hunt you down.”

             “You are a bundle of laughs.”

             “The question we need to be asking is why _would_ they kill Chief Bradshaw now?” Kinzie said. “It’s been years since he left the Saints and he’s been protecting them ever since. He’s the reason they never pulled the plug on the serial killer leading the gang. They owe him their life.”

             “They’re gangsters,” Johnny said. “He betrayed them. It’s that simple.”

             “It doesn’t add up,” Kinzie said. “Why would you kill someone who was helping you? When they’ve been taking your bribes for years?”

             “If either of you two betrayed me I’d kill you,” Johnny shrugged. “Maybe Troy stopped being useful.”

             “Thanks Johnny,” Matt said. “That’s very reassuring.”

             “We need recent info on the Saints,” Johnny said. “I’m going to talk to Brimstone.”

             “You’re not on her case anymore,” Matt said. “Captain Richards won’t like that.”

             “If she’s got info on the Saints then she’s part of my case,” Johnny said. “Richards can fucking deal with it.”

* * *

             “Aren’t you the guy from yesterday?” Brimstone said. He’d dragged her up out of the cells and she was incredibly pissed off about it. “Richards said you were off the case. I was glad. He’s actually charging me.” She sounded smug.

             “Richards is a shitty cop,” Johnny said. “And you have information on the Saints.”

             “You said you didn’t want information on the Saints,” she said.

             “Things change,” he said.

             “What’s in it for me?”

             “We’ll use the information to take the Saints down,” Johnny said. “Is that not beneficial for everyone?”

             “Oh,” she said. “Yeah. Yeah alright.”

             “Get talking,” he said.

             “The Devil’s Seven started talking to the Saints when we first formed,” Brimstone said, leaning in. She was excited. “Everyone knows the Saints’ drugs trade has always struggled. We had contacts so we stepped in. My brother dealt with them mostly. But the profits they were letting us keep were so low we started selling behind their backs. And that’s when group relations fell through.”

             “Right, right, real tragedy. How well did you know the Saints?”

             “I didn’t, like I said, my brother was the one who mostly dealt with them. I met one of the lieutenants and the Boss a few times. The lieutenant was called Shaundi, she handled all the drug business. She’s real nice, until you piss her off, and then she’s stone cold _bitch_. The Boss is out of their goddamn mind. They’re evil.”

             “Do you know anything about Bradshaw’s death?”

             “Bradshaw? Like, Chief Bradshaw? Why would I know anything about that?”

             “The Saints killed him, right? They never mentioned him?”

             “No? I didn’t get involved in their business, man, if they had issues with Bradshaw that wasn’t anything to do with me.”

             “What _do_ you know?”

             “I got names. I can tell you the names of all the lieutenants.”

             “I already _know_ who they are. I don’t want names.”

             “You don’t want names? Then what do you want? I thought names would be…”

             In all honesty Johnny wasn’t particularly sure what he wanted from her. Something useful, something that would give him an edge. Some more in-depth information on what the Saints were really _like_. But he didn’t have time to ask Brimstone anything else before the door came flying open and Captain Richards walked in with a look on his face like he was going to obliterate Johnny from time and space.

             “Lieutenant Gat, what in the fresh hell do you think you’re doing?” Richards said.

             “Talking to Ms. García about the Saints,” Johnny said. Richards did not look pleased.

             “Ms. García is _not_ your suspect and you are _not_ on the Devil’s Seven case anymore,” Richards said. “I don’t know what information you think you can wheedle out of my suspect but I can guarantee it’s not going to be enough to stop you from going undercover. Get out of here before I call the Chief.”

             Johnny left, shoving past Richards without grace. Jesus Christ gossip spread quickly in this place. Brimstone winked at him when he left but he didn’t rise to the obvious bait. Instead he just walked away, heading over to his office. He was quietly seething but it was an anger he already knew was futile and the only person he had to direct his anger at was Forester, and fighting with Forester was going to have far more drawbacks than benefits.

             That was when Kinzie leapt out at him, brandishing her tablet, taking him slightly by surprise. Matt caught up a second later, both of them looking overeager in a way that meant they were up to something that would best be described as ‘no good’. It was the kind of look that suggested they had done something that was no doubt going to be mildly impressive, but ran risk of getting Gat into trouble. This was not something that happened infrequently. There was a reason you didn’t give eighteen year olds this kind of authority and power and access to police files. Or Kinzie. Johnny didn’t think you should let Kinzie have access to anything if you liked the concept of privacy.

             “We have something to show you,” Kinzie said.

             “And something to _not_ show you,” Matt added eagerly, like this made any sense whatsoever. Kinzie gave him a funny look.

             “Let’s not do this in the hallway,” Johnny said. There was another officer standing slightly further down the corridor and looking at them with some suspicion. He didn’t want to have to explain what they were doing to _her_. He wasn’t even entirely sure who she was.

             They walked to Kinzie and Matt’s office. The room was somewhat of a cave, full of blinking electronic equipment of every shape and form imaginable. What the hell the two of them got up to in there was anyone’s guess and, in Johnny’s opinion, absolutely none of his business. Kinzie crammed the tablet into his hands the second he walked through the door, visibly squirming with excitement. He looked blankly at the screen, before he realised the emails he was looking at weren’t Kinzie’s, but Forester’s.

             “Are you meant to be looking at these?” Johnny asked.

             “No,” Kinzie said, as though it was witheringly obvious.

_FORESTER_ , one email from Hughes sent a week ago began _, I’m not seeing any results here. I gave you the job because you swore to me you’d take down the Third Street Saints for good. It’s been over three months and now I’m hearing the Saints destroyed the Hughes memorial statue again. This isn’t good enough. There were other candidates for the position you know. I want the monsters who killed Troy Bradshaw behind bars._

_Monica_ , Forester’s reply said, _while the attack on the statue was unfortunate, we have actually been in the process of training an officer to enter the Saints undercover for some time now, and we believe the operation will lead to the downfall of the Saints…_

             “Yeah, it’s like I said,” Johnny said. “Forester is pretending this whole thing was planned. He’s just trying to keep his job.”

             “No, look at _this_ ,” Kinzie said, leaning over to flick through to another page of emails.

_I’m not explaining this again Gus. It’s not happening. Don’t start with me. –Troy_

             “What the fuck?” Johnny said.

             “I’ve been looking through Forester’s account and that’s the _only_ email from Troy,” Kinzie said. “Everything else is just work-related. Troy’s email account is gone. There was something else going on here before Troy got killed.”

             “I think Forester wanted to cut off the police relationship with the Saints,” Matt said. “And Troy wasn’t willing to.”

             “That makes the most sense,” Kinzie said. “Forester hates the Saints. And if Troy ended up changing his mind that explains why the Saints chose now to kill him.”

             “That’s pretty fucked,” Johnny conceded. “What was the other thing?”

             “The alley where Troy was killed is behind a pawn shop,” Matt said. “The place is covered in security cameras. There’s one looking right down on the spot where Troy was shot.”

             “That would have been the first places the investigating officers looked,” Johnny said.

             “Or not,” Matt said, “because there’s no footage from that whole night.”

             “What the fuck?”

             “The camera footage just skips from the afternoon before to the day after the murder with nothing in between,” Kinzie said. “Whoever killed Troy got it wiped.”

             “But it’s not out of the range of possibility that the Saints could have wiped it,” Matt said. “The pawn shop is in their territory.”

             “So what we know,” Johnny said, “is that someone maybe possibly did something.”

             “If someone’s hiding it then it’s worth having,” Matt said. “None of this would be significant if people weren’t trying to cover it up.”

             “Then find it,” Johnny said.

             “How did it go with Brimstone?” Kinzie said.

             “It didn’t. Richards threw me out. She knew nothing you didn’t,” Johnny said. He sighed and sat heavily in Kinzie’s desk chair, running his hand through his hair. “I’m going to join the Saints.”

             “Did you really think you were going to be able to find something that would get you out of it? I thought you were just trying to get some more background info…”

             “No, but…” Johnny tried to think of an end to that sentence but didn’t have one, so he let it dwindle into awkward silence. He folded his arms and felt the rectangle of the tape in the pocket of his jacket. He felt some new burst of hope. He’d watched enough corny action movies in his childhood to know this was going to be something important.

             He leapt up and began rifling through piles of electronic junk on the shelves in the office until he found a tape player, throwing the tape that was inside it across the room, where it rebounded off the wall and hit the floor with a crack. Matt looked vaguely resentful. Johnny stuck the unlabelled tape inside the player and hit play. At first there was nothing but the drone of static but then Troy’s voice burst in, grainy and heard through the shaky filter of a wiretap, but obviously and unmistakeably furious.

             “What the fuck was that?!” Troy bellowed.

             “It was the only way,” came a voice Johnny didn’t know.

             “I said “talk”, not set off a goddamn bomb!”

             “Relax Troy, the Saints are finished… Don’t try to find me.”

             The tape kept running but the rest was just silence and garbled static. Johnny waited with baited breath, but nothing happened, certainly nothing he could understand better. It was just another loose strand. He wasn’t even convinced they were connected outside of the obvious; Troy Bradshaw had a long history with the Saints. When he’d finally ended the undercover operation he’d spent the next eight years protecting them every chance he got, and when another officer had turned on him he’d refused to let go. And then, despite his warped loyalty, he’d been gunned down. It was sad. It was a complete tragedy. It was completely fucking irrelevant to Johnny.

             “That mean anything to you?” Matt asked.

             “No,” Johnny said. “Not really.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is actually probably my favourite chapter so far, which bodes ill seeing as it's only the second out of the five I've written. Still, maybe 5 will end up being great. Maybe 6 will be amazing. Maybe, as usual, I'm completely wrong about how people will react to my writing. Who knows. Mostly I like it because I like Troy and it sets up some thematic stuff I'm vaguely going for.


	3. Meet the Saints

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Johnny meets the Saints, and they try to beat the sh*t out of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first chapter where we meet Carlos, the Boss and Shaundi, who are obviously three major characters. I'm going to warn in advance that none of them are going to be exactly like they are in the games, for many reasons. Particularly Carlos. I'm warning you about Carlos so you can't complain later.

            The sign outside the church said _Stilwater Memorial Church_. Johnny tended to think of placed called ‘Memorial’ as being hospitals, places of healing, but that description was ludicrously false when applied to the church. It was white but dirty white, white stone impure from the dirt and the vandalism and the accumulated filth of the air around it. In the past it had been built of rough grey blocks, layered with years upon years of graffiti- Ultor couldn’t have had much worth saving. They called it a restoration, but the church he looked on now didn’t look like it did in his childhood memory. But maybe his memory was skewed; he remembered something much bigger, something that loomed over Stilwater as an ever-present threat. He suddenly recalled being afraid of the church as a child. He’d thought it was haunted.

            In the end it didn’t matter how beautiful it was, it was a tombstone. The beauty of the architecture or the stained glass could only ever be a façade. It wasn’t ever going to be anything else but the Saints’ church.

            “What do you want?”

            There were four men standing outside of the church, all of them dressed in purple in varying shades. They were guards, watching out for anyone trying to infringe on their territory. The one who had spoken was a young red-headed guy in a bandana and a shiny plastic jacket, smoking a badly rolled cigarette. He was trying to look much bigger than he actually was.

            “I wanna be a Saint,” Johnny said. “Why the fuck else would I be here?”

            The Saints looked at each other and then back at him in a mixture of confusion and amusement. He could tell they weren’t taking him seriously. He didn’t know what it was he was doing _wrong_ exactly but they weren’t impressed. They were nudging each other and edging each other on, let’s pick on _this_ guy. New guy. New idiot. He could feel his patience wearing thin already.

            “Who the fuck are you?” Another one said, a tall guy with dreadlocks and a goofy grin.

            “I’m Johnny fucking Gat.”

            “Whoa, whoa, ok Johnny _fucking_ Gat,” the man in the bandana laughed, looking over at his friends, who sniggered. Johnny wasn’t interested in this shit. “You really think you’re good enough for the Saints?”

            “They let you in,” Johnny said. “Low bar.”

            “Man, I could take you any day, don’t even try me,” bandana said, laughing again in a way that reminded Johnny of a malfunctioning trash compactor.

            Johnny’s last nerve snapped. He grabbed bandana by the back of the head and jerked it down as he brought his knee up to meet it. Bandana stumbled backwards from him, arms flailing as his nose gushed blood. The other three Saints were too shocked for a second to move, staring at bandana and then at Johnny with their faces stretched into comical masks of shock. Johnny cracked his knuckles. He was looking forward to having a good fight.

            One of them attempted to pin his arms behind his back to hold him as the others attacked but he snapped his head backwards and felt their nose crunch behind it. He kicked out at one of the others, hitting them square in the chest and sending them flying. A third moved for him and he swung a punch, hitting them in the jaw hard enough to dislocate it. They screamed with surprise but weren’t put off, trying to hit back. He grabbed them by the throat and threw them away from him, crashing them into one of the others as they came for him.

            He took a punch to the face and shook it off, hitting back and hitting hard, his fist coming up underneath bandana’s chin and knocking his head up with a crack so loud it reverberated. Bandana was spitting teeth and blood, his nose a mush of bone, distraught in a way that amused Johnny greatly. Bandana’s friends weren’t looking happy either. One of them tried to get him by the throat but he kneed them in the balls and punched them in the stomach and the man dropped to the ground with a wail. He and bandana didn’t look like they were too eager to have another go. The other two were still standing. One threw a punch again but Johnny caught his arm and that punch didn’t connect- but Johnny’s did.

            Man on the ground was crying but he apparently hadn’t had enough, having a kind of tenacity Johnny could almost admire. He tried to stand and lashed out at Johnny, forcing him to dodge and take another hit, from the guy he’d given a black eye only a second before. Johnny wasn’t impressed by that. He hit them once, twice, both times square in the face, the man dizzy from the blows even before Johnny head-butted him and sent him clattering to the ground. And then crying man didn’t have a chance to move before Johnny kicked him in the gut hard enough to rupture something.

            The last man standing, the man with the goofy smile, wasn’t looking too sure of himself. He already had a bloody nose and he was laughing in a nervous way that suggested to Johnny that he was about ready to pull out a white flag. Johnny signalled for the guy to bring it on and he backed away, hands up, still laughing. He kept backing away until he walked right into the man exiting the building.

            “What are you…? What the _fuck_?” The man said. “What happened here?”

            “Carlos!” The last man standing said, with the tone of someone who had just been caught by their teacher writing dirty words on the blackboard. “We… Uh… We got a new recruit.”

            “And you decided to make him kill everyone?” The man- Carlos- said, looking at the downed Saints, and then up at Johnny. Johnny straightened his glasses and shrugged casually. Carlos stared at him in disbelief.

            He was short, had black hair shaved close under his purple cap, pale skin and _angry_ eyes. He spoke with a definite accent but he slurred his words when he spoke and they came out muddled. His arms had scraps of tattoos in some places were the skin wasn’t ruined or replaced, disconnected pieces that didn’t form coherent artwork anymore. Johnny could almost make out praying hands on his shoulder.

            “He broke D’s nose or something man, we were just going… To teach him a lesson…?” Last Man Standing said hopefully.

            “And he kicked all of your asses,” Carlos said. “He beat the shit outta all four of you. One guy.”

            “Yep,” Johnny said. Last Man grinned awkwardly.

            “Who the fuck are you?” Carlos said.

            “I’m Johnny Gat,” Johnny said.

            “Johnny _fucking_ Gat,” Last Man added, unnecessarily. Bandana groaned and spat up blood. Carlos shot him a look that was so violent that bandana chose to lie back down again and carry on playing dead rather than try to deal with the situation.

            “You want in the Saints?” Carlos said.

            “Fuck yeah I want in the Saints,” Johnny said.

            “You’re in,” Carlos said.

            “Just like that, huh?”

            “You took out four guys in the parking lot before you even got inside, do I look fucking stupid?”

            Johnny wasn’t going to make any comments on how Carlos looked. The guy had, at best, half a face. The rest was scar tissue and skin grafts. One of his eyes was a milky white with no eyelid, the skin underneath little more than a graft stretched loosely over a hollow cheek. Most of the original flesh had been torn off. His mouth sagged on that side, leading to his slurred speech. In short, the guy looked like a mess and he had the kind of deep seated hatred in his eyes that Johnny could respect in a person. Johnny liked him already.

            Carlos walked into the church and Johnny and Last Man followed; they left the others groaning on the floor. Last Man smiled at him bashfully.

            “No hard feelings?” He said.

            “No,” Johnny laughed. “It’s cool, man.”

            “You’re not so bad, Johnny fucking Gat,” Last Man said.

            “Yeah, you’re alright,” Johnny said. “Nice meeting you, Last Man Standing.”

            “Nice meeting you too, dude.” He slunk off when Carlos dismissed him, but didn’t stop smiling for a minute.

            The inside of the church had lost its glamour. It had been done up by Ultor back in 2010 when they were working on renovating the Row, but the Saints had kicked them out in ’13, and sitting empty for almost three years, with five months of Saints occupation on top of that, had taken it back to its former ‘glory’. There wasn’t a single pew that wasn’t vandalised and the walls were covered in graffiti, the purple drapes behind the alter hanging on a single hinge, sloping down the back wall. Someone had replaced the bulbs with purple tinted ones and the whole place was oddly dim and filtered, the light through the cracked stained glass windows stained a myriad colours. The place felt smoky and hazy, entering it was like walking into a premature dusk. Johnny almost had to strain his eyes to see from behind his shades- although he sure as hell wasn’t going to take them off.

            The place was filled up with Saints, people crashing on the pews and hanging out on the balcony, barely giving him a second glance. He was the only person in the building not wearing purple. Probably one of the only ones without the fleur-de-lis tattooed everywhere but their ass. The church wasn’t that big but it had some feeling of _grandness_ to it. When he stood in the middle of the church, the light from the round stained glass window hit his face and he suddenly felt something very _cold_ , a feeling like someone passing over his grave. He hated fucking churches.

            There was a spiral staircase to the right of the alter, in front of another set of doors, and a woman with short brown hair and tight purple pants was sitting on the stairs, smoking a cigarette. She smiled at Carlos and then looked at Johnny with mild interest, like she was trying to remember who he was. She was small but wearing treacherously high heels that elevated her almost to Johnny’s height. She was pretty, but she was pretty in the way an antique sword was pretty. You could admire the elegance of the design but you had to acknowledge that it could carve you in two.

            “You got a piece?” Carlos asked.

            “Huh? Yeah,” Johnny said. “Yeah I’m good.”

            The woman stood up, stubbing out the cigarette on the no doubt obscenely expensive white marble floor and walking over to them.

            “Hey,” she said, her voice surprisingly husky. “Who’s this?”

            “This,” Carlos said, “is a guy who just knocked out four dudes in the parking lot because they pissed him off.”

            “Four guys, huh?” She said. “Almost impressive. I’m Shaundi.”

            “Johnny Gat,” Johnny said, sick of saying his name already.

            “Gat? That’s funny.”

            “Why?”

            “I thought- never mind. You wanna be a Saint? You gotta be canonized.”

            “He just _was_ ,” Carlos said.

            “That was only four guys. I wanna see how far we can push him.” Shaundi had a smile like something that was warning it was going to bite.

            “You want me to fight a bunch of guys?” He said. “Fuck it. I’m game.”

            “I like him,” Shaundi said. Carlos rolled his eyes.

            “Ok, ok, if you want to see what he’s got,” Carlos said good-naturedly. “I mean I thought _I_ was in charge of new recruits, but…”

            “Don’t be jealous Carlos, we’re all on the same team,” Shaundi said, and Carlos smiled for the first time since Johnny met him.

            She pushed Johnny back a few steps into the middle of the room and whistled. That caught the attention of the others and he could feel eyes on him for the first time since he’d walked in. A couple of the Saints knew what was up already, jumping to their feet and getting ready to fight. Last Man, notably, did not get up. He was shaking his head, but not stopping anyone else. Johnny was going to crack skulls. He was looking forward to it.

            Someone hit him in the lower back before he was even aware the fight had begun. He wheeled around and knocked the guy down in one hit. The others were excited now, like the ease with which he could take a guy down was a challenge rather than a warning. Someone else threw a punch and he caught it but didn’t get a chance to hit back before someone else was on him, hitting him in the stomach. He took it and withstood it, head-butting his attacker. He struck out and hit the guy next to him before they even got a punch in. He got someone in the gut, kicked someone else in the knee, threw someone to the ground. He took a hit to the face, to the ribs. He elbowed someone in the eye and shattered someone’s rib and body slammed someone else. His shades were hanging loose on his face and his hair was dangling in his eyes and he was panting and sweating but he was having the _time of his life_. He slapped a man so hard their glasses broke and then nearly tore a dude’s kneecap off trying to get him to back down. He got hit and broke their arm. He got kicked and stamped on their ankle so hard it snapped.

            People were backing off or already down but he wasn’t done yet. He barely noticed when the front doors opened and someone walked in, he was too busy having a good fucking time. He had a split lip and the beginnings of a black eye but he didn’t care. He had a lot more fight in him, heart pounding. He had blood in his mouth and someone by the throat when the new observer spoke.

            “Canonization?” The voice pierced right through his fug of adrenaline.

            “Yeah,” Shaundi said.

            “New guy is winning,” the voice said as Gat knocked another guy out with a butt to the head.

            “Yeah.”

            “Alright, alright, that’s enough.”

            The others slunk off and Johnny relaxed, finally, fists uncurling. He rolled his shoulders and looked at the person who had called off the fight and looking at them hit him harder than any of the punches had. There was power to them, people looked at them with respect- but that wasn’t why Johnny felt their eyes shooting right through him and that wasn’t why they too froze, looking at him with curious, sceptical eyes. He knew who they _were_ without anyone saying so, didn’t need to be told they were the person in charge; people looked at them with _fear_ and they looked at them with _devotion_ and that much was obvious. But he didn’t _know_ them and he didn’t know why he felt like he did.

            “This is the Boss,” Shaundi said. “And this is Johnny Gat.”

            “Where’d you find him?” The Boss said.

            “Parking lot, beating the shit out of four of our guys,” Carlos said. “Judas said it was their fault.”

            “I didn’t-” Last Man Standing began, before Carlos held up a silent hand and muted him.    

            The Boss walked through the church, past the broken pews and past Johnny, looking at him sidelong. He couldn’t tell what they were thinking.

            “That’s some impressive shit,” they said, “the only other Saint who kicked ass like that was me.”

            “Shit,” Johnny said, “I bet it took me half the time.”

            The Boss grinned but kept walking, stopping at the doors behind the alter.

            “Carlos, you better have something on the Vultures by now,” they said.

            “Yeah, uh,” Carlos said. “They’re run by some guy everyone calls _Papa_ or some shit and-”

            “Papa Wizard,” Johnny said. Carlos looked outraged at the interruption, but he had the Boss’ attention.

            “What you know about the Vultures?” The Boss said curiously.

            “I know they’re led by some wacked out old dude called Papa Wizard, I know they’re making meth in Elysian Fields and Black Bottom,” Johnny said. “I know they got delivery boys on fucking ATVs and they think they’re subtle.” He shrugged. “That’s about it.”

            “They got a fucking delivery service and they’re right under our nose and none of you fucking _noticed_?” The Boss said. “You think you can find those meth labs for me?”

            “Hell yeah,” Johnny said.

            “I like you. Carlos, what the fuck? Go with new guy and find those fucking meth labs already.” The Boss vanished through the door behind the alter, letting it slam shut behind them. Carlos was furious beyond words, storming out of the church in silent anger.

            “Y’know what?” Shaundi said, “I think I’m going to go with you.” She winked. “Just in case Carlos tries to throw you out of the car.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing the other Saints is really hard for me for reasons I find somewhat inexplicable. Writing Johnny was pretty easy, but writing the Boss has been putting me through the wringer a bit. The instinct is to write my Boss, Nicolæ, which I guess I _would_ prefer (it'd be easier) but that wouldn't seem terribly fair. The Boss in this fic is meant to be closer to the Boss in Saints Row 1 than any other, if you're wondering, but for various reasons they've ended up taking a very different character arc. 
> 
> Shaundi being different in every new version is almost kind of a joke but Carlos being very different makes me a little nervous; I know he's a fan-favourite and I don't want to upset people. But I have reasons dudes, I'm not just doing stuff randomly. Well, I mean, I am, but ... Y'know... I'm trying to needlessly defend myself here, ok?


	4. The Boys are Back in Town (although technically were never in town in the first place within this continuity)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Johnny and the Boss bond over their mutual, horrifying, interests and Forester is too insistent

            Carlos drove a purple roofless Cosmos and he drove like he had something against it. Shaundi sat in the front seat next to him while Gat took up the back seat by himself, head back and eyes half-shut. He was barely paying attention to the two up front honestly, watching the sky streaking past above him as they talked about things he didn’t judge consequential. Johnny could get used to this, he decided. He then quickly decided that he better not.

            “Did you ever call her back?” Shaundi asked.

            “Nah, nah I couldn’t be bothered,” Carlos said.

            “Couldn’t be bothered? You seeing so many girls they’re just too much effort for you?”

            “Shut up Shaundi. I dunno, she wasn’t really that special, you know? Just… Whatever.”

            “You were trying to get her number for weeks!”

            “I guess I didn’t really want her that bad.”

            Shaundi looked back at Johnny. He got the impression he was being checked out.

            “You got someone Johnny?” She asked sweetly.

            “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah I got a girl.”

            “What’s she called?”

            “Aisha.”

            “Aisha? Like the singer?”

            “Yeah. Like the singer.” He wondered if bringing her up was a mistake.

            “See Carlos? Johnny’s got a girl,” she teased.

            “Good for fuckin’ Johnny,” Carlos said. “Ain’t he just the best.”

            “Yo, man I got no problem with you if you haven’t got a problem with me,” Johnny said. “I just got here.”

            Carlos glanced at him in the wing mirror and then grunted noncommittally. But Johnny felt some of the tension radiating from him defusing a little and he congratulated himself on handling that difficult situation perfectly. By then they were well into Black Bottom and Johnny sat up, looking around. The area wasn’t far from where the Saints had set up when they’d returned- or so he thought, he didn’t know shit. He’d first heard of them when they were still living in an old warehouse and in a huge territory dispute with the Brotherhood because of it. They still had it. It occurred to him that he could just ask.

            “Isn’t one of the warehouses around here where the Saints started?” Johnny said.

            “No, it’s over in Charlestown,” Carlos said. “It’s where me and the Boss first crashed when we broke out of jail. That was a fucking mess.”

            “Shit, you broke out of jail with the Boss?” He knew this already, but there was no harm in pretending otherwise.

            “Yeah,” Carlos said. “Good times.”

            “You been with the Saints a long time then.”

            “Yeah.”

            “What about you, Shaundi?”

            “Hey, what about you stop asking so many questions?” Carlos snapped.

            “Whoa,” Johnny said. “I’m just curious.”

            “Don’t be,” Carlos said, with a spark of sudden raw anger. Johnny was hot headed, this guy was a powder keg. He was a threat.

            Someone on an ATV zoomed past them, turning sharply round the corner and vanishing. Carlos was after him without a word, performing a completely illegal U-turn in the middle of the road and racing after the ATV at a speed that could have thrown Gat from the back of the car if he hadn’t been strapped in.

            “He’s going to see us!” Shaundi said.

            “So?” Carlos said. “We’re going to kill him.”

            “Boss said _find_ the meth labs, not kill everyone _in_ the meth labs.”

            “Jesus, fucking fine.”

            “Why _not_ just kill everyone there?” Gat said, as Carlos tailed the ATV at a pace that was less likely to have them run the courier over before they reached the warehouse.

            “Because the Boss will want to do it,” Shaundi said. “They’re very hands-on.”

            “More like they just don’t know how to delegate,” Carlos said.

            “Sounds to me like they get other people to do the grunt work and keep all the fun for themselves,” Johnny said. “Smart.”

            The ATV was heading down to the Stilwater Caverns tourist trap. The place was built into some kind of old factory, the now useless smoke stack emblazoned with faded yellow letters advertising the riveting cave tours. A broken neon sign screamed PHANTOM CAVERNS to everyone who cared to look at the ugly brick heap, although the letters no longer glowed through the smog. It hadn’t been open for a while now. It had become somewhat less popular after the Saints had shot the place up on several different occasions. Someone had stolen the Spelunkers sign from the front door and most of the windows were broken, the work that had gone into renovating it a few years ago gone to waste. As it was, the Stilwater Caverns was just as much of a dump as it had been when Johnny was a kid and his elementary school had forced them all to visit the place one too many times. He’d pushed kids into the lake in the cavern so often he’d been banned, which he had considered a pretty good reward.

            “Don’t the Saints own this place?” Carlos said. “Are they operating out of _our_ building?”

            “We owned the gift shop back before it closed,” Shaundi said. “The city of Stilwater owns the caverns themselves.”

            “The Saints own Stilwater.” Johnny said helpfully.

            “So they’re in our fucking building!” Carlos said. “Let’s get back to the Boss about this and then head over to Elysian Fields to see if we can find where people are working.”

            Carlos drove on by, taking a sharp turn and then shooting up the freeway, narrowly avoiding crashing into a black and red car that had committed the sin of driving under 85. He seemed untroubled by this minor inconvenience, continuing to tear down the freeway and over Athos Bay as Shaundi called the Boss.

            “Yeah, we found them, they’re in the Phantom Caverns. Yes, the general consensus is that it’s ours. What’s the plan? No, don’t just destroy everything, that’s what happened with the Samedi and we’ve been behind on the drug trade ever since. Kill them, take the stock. Take the equipment if you can. Yes. Johnny and Carlos? Yeah. I’ll check out Elysian Fields while you three head down there. Alright. Yeah.”

            She hung up and looked at the others.

            “You guys got that?” She said. “Boss is waiting for us at the church.”

            Carlos nodded and turned off the freeway onto Mission Beach, screeching to a halt outside the church, another Saint diving out of the way to avoid getting run down. Shaundi climbed out of the car, waving a quick goodbye as her phone went off, immediately seguing from a friendly goodbye to snarling down the phone about a drug shipment not coming in on time. She walked off to her own car, casually twirling her pistol in her hand as she threatened some poor inept Saint over the phone.

Carlos slipped into the passenger seat as the Boss approached, LMG slung over their shoulder as casually as if it were an exceptionally deadly handbag. They thumped down in the driver’s seat and slammed on the radio, wheeling away from the church in a manner so half-hazard that Johnny was almost thrown from the back for the second time in a quarter of an hour. Carlos was gripping the inside of the door by reflex.

            “Looking forward to this?” The Boss said.

            “Fuck yes,” Johnny said.

* * *

            During his training Johnny had been described by a superior officer as having ‘an aptitude for violence’. This was not an unfair description, although a less polite person might say ‘bloodthirsty’. Johnny didn’t really care what people said but he wasn’t going to deny the fact he enjoyed fighting more than most and the ability to carry firearms was something he considered a perk of the job. He’d almost been thrown out of the police academy for fighting other students, before his parents managed to convince him to calm the fuck down before he ruined his future. Maybe that was why Forester had chosen him for the undercover job; if there was anyone who would be able to handle gang violence and not break character or break down, it was Johnny Gat.

            The cavern gift shop had been empty for a while, but it was still in use. Footprints tracked back and forth to the metal stairs heading down into the caverns and the feeble piece of rope draped across them wasn’t going to do much to keep anyone out. Boss ripped it off with slightly more force than was completely necessary, stomping down the stairs. Johnny followed, trying to relax his grip on his handgun. He knew he was holding it like a cop. That two handed safety grip with his arms out straight. Uncool and obvious. If Troy had been caught out on his haircut, Johnny wasn’t going to get caught out for something as stupid as how he held his fucking gun. He would have liked a machine gun like the Boss or Carlos, but he wasn’t prepared to ask one of them to trade.

            The stairs went down and down until they eventually reached a brick room lit up with weak flickering lightbulbs that cast their shadows huge and wavering on the wall behind them. The words painted on the bricks above the stairs assured them there were ‘artifacts on sale’ but anything that had once been in the hall was long since gone, nothing left but dust and the smell of damp and burning plastic. The air was heavy and wet, and it stunk.

There were two ways out of the room but they both led down to the caverns and Boss took the stairs on the left, walking softer now, listening out for anyone else moving through the caverns. Walking down the corridor towards a single bright bulb their shadow was thrown long, leaving Johnny and Carlos walking in their dark. Johnny didn’t like that. He jogged to catch up with them, leaving Carlos the one trailing behind.

            The wood-walled corridor eventually let down into the stone maw of the cavern, the Phantom Caverns sign plastered with the Vultures’ talon signature. Boss shot the sign and it exploded inwards, falling off the metal posts in bits. Johnny snorted with laughter.

            “They’re going to hear us,” Carlos hissed.

            “Then we’ll shoot them,” the Boss said.

            Walking through the caverns wasn’t any more thrilling than it had been when Gat was in elementary. Their footsteps rang out through the empty space of the caverns, echoing back to them in waves. There was old Saints graffiti on a few walls, but all were covered up with the Vultures tag. The Boss clearly took this as a personal insult. As they walked further down, noise in the distance grew and Carlos shifted grip on his gun.

            “How many people we expecting?” He said.

            “Fuck knows. Are you nervous?” Boss said.

            “Fuck you,” Carlos said.

            “He’s nervous,” Johnny said.

            “Fuck you!”

            There was a single Vulture guard standing up ahead, dressed in the group’s signature blue. Blue had never seemed like a very Vulture-ish colour to Johnny, but he wasn’t sure what a Vulture colour actually was. Brown? Regardless, the guy was dead before he had the chance to see them coming.

            The noise attracted immediate attention; a group of Vultures rounded the corner and started coming at them. The first one was down when the Boss got them in the head, and Johnny narrowly avoided taking a hit to the shoulder, taking the next guy down with a shot to the gut. He hit the woman next to him with the butt of his gun and the Boss shot her before she hit the ground. His next shot tore through the person trying to rush him, sending them flying backwards and crashing into another Vulture. They tried to recover but Johnny fired through their thigh and they slammed down onto the ground, where he brought his foot down on the back of their neck.

            Carlos brought down the last of the first group but they could already hear more coming.

            “It’s the Saints!”

            “Yeah, no fucking shit!” The Boss shouted.

            The Boss fired a burst towards the oncoming Vultures but the incoming fire drove them all back, moving behind a cluster of stalagmites for cover- stalactites? Johnny didn’t know or care. Carlos fired over the top of the rock spears, one of the first of the attackers hitting the ground.

            “We’re not scared of you!” One of them called out.

            “The fuck you aren’t,” the Boss said, standing up and firing on the group. There were shouts as the Vultures scattered but the Boss hit the floor again shortly afterwards, ducking out of the way of the returning fire.

            Gat leaned around the profoundly limited cover and took fire, taking out a Vulture and a lightbulb with them. One of the others sprang away from the sparking wire and leapt right into Carlos’ line of fire. More enemy shots cracked out, hitting one of the rocks and blowing it past Johnny’s shoulder. With the already very limited cover now severely lessened Johnny moved, ducking behind a wooden crate and grabbing the man next to it. He dragged the guy down and slammed his head into the floor, shattering his jaw. The Boss fired down the hallway and Johnny joined, the two of them decimating the Vultures in the open.

            “I feel like this is a nice bonding experience,” the Boss said, reloading before they were forced to move out of the way to avoid getting hit.

            “Half the fun of murderin’ is doing it with friends,” Johnny said. The Boss looked delighted by this, but Carlos shut his eye and mumbled to himself something that was either a prayer or the words ‘not another one’.

             The crate exploded behind Johnny and he moved, at the same moment as the Boss lobbed a grenade down the corridor. Johnny heard and felt the explosion rip through the air without turning to watch, ducked down with his hands over his ears. Splinters of stone and chunks of rock showered down on him, the air thick with dust and the smell of blood. He dragged himself to his feet, shaking dirt out of his hair.

            “Where the fuck did you get a grenade?” He said.

            “Friendly Fire,” the Boss said.

            The sound had to have reached the lower levels, reverberating back and forth through the confined hallways of the caverns, but no one came running. Carlos wiped dust off his face and shouldered his gun.

            “You could have used that earlier,” he said.

            “How would that have been as fun?” The Boss said.

            Walking further into the caverns the air got colder and damper, the lights reflecting off the wet walls with a glimmer. Eventually they reached a point where the path forked, one route leading across a wooden walkway and the other heading further down into the caverns. The Boss and Carlos headed down the ramp but Johnny kept walking straight ahead, onto the bridge. He took four or five steps across before the wood began creaking under him and, to his horror, splintered and cracked, caving inwards. He leapt backwards but too late, losing balance as the wood collapsed and fell, taking him with it. He crashed through and rolled down the sloping bank of stone that ran underneath part of the walkway, falling straight into a table full of equipment surrounded by a group of Vultures. All of them stared at him shocked silence as he lay there, momentarily winded and listening to one of the others howling with laughter in the distance.

            “What the fuck?” Was the only thing one of the Vultures managed to say before they were interrupted.

            The Boss and Carlos burst in guns blazing and Johnny managed to roll off the shattered table and scramble to his feet, retrieving his gun from the wreckage. He shoulder-barged the guy closest to him, knocking them to the ground and taking them out. He grabbed another of the Vultures, holding the man by the throat to use as a human shield. The Boss was tearing through the others, three Vultures down before Johnny had moved onto his second. He was both impressed and mildly jealous.

            The situation became clear quickly; the Boss did not need much help. They could blast through half a dozen Vultures on their own in less than a minute, clearing the room with the kind of speed and efficiency that most people would have struggled to match. He and Carlos were just there to mop anyone who managed to slip by. Johnny used the human shield to take a round of bullets for him, hauling the body away and shooting through the throat of the nearest man, the shot slicing through and hitting the man behind in the eye.

            “Nice,” the Boss said.

            “Yeah, you’re not so bad yourself,” Johnny said.

            “Not so bad?”

            “You’re ok.”

            “I’m _ok?_ ”

            “You heard me.”

            The Boss raised the gun and, without looking, shot down a Vulture on the other side of the room. Johnny did the exact same, knocking down the man on the opposite side of the cavern. The Boss whirled, clubbing the person behind them with the butt of their gun. Johnny grabbed the guy closest to him and broke his neck.

            “You’re ok,” the Boss said.

            “I understand if you’re intimidated by my natural greatness,” Johnny said.

            “Intimidated?”

            “Yeah. Y’know. Scared.”

            “You want to make this a contest?”

            “You’ve already killed _everyone_ ,” Carlos said.

            “What’s next?” Johnny said.

            “We’re good here,” the Boss said. “Carlos, get some guys in here to take any product that’s useable, Shaundi’s crew can shift it. Let’s get out of this dump.”

            Heading out was a relief. Johnny was caked with dirt and other people’s blood, damp and coated with a fine layer of dust, but he felt like he’d achieved something. He’d definitely gotten through to the Boss. He was definitely in their good books. That was more than he’d been able to hope for.

            “Nice work in there,” the Boss said.

            “Thanks,” Johnny said. “I think this is going to be fun.” He turned to leave.

            “Where you headed?”

            “I got a date,” Johnny said. “I’ll catch you tomorrow.”

            “Yeah,” the Boss said, with an expression Johnny couldn’t read. “Later.”

* * *

            The place Johnny was staying at was a dump. It was an apartment block in Bavogian Plaza with the scenic view of the Stilwater railway line, both pawn shops and porn shops and a carpark surrounded by abandoned buildings. It was a far throw from the house he shared with Aisha. He was not going to say he was homesick, but he was going to think it, privately, without telling anyone. He needed to call her, but he knew he had an obligation to call Kinzie and Matt first, as miserable as that made him. He dragged his work laptop out from the suitcase under his bed and called his handlers.

            “How’s it going?” Kinzie said, seated at her desk with Matt looming over shoulder.

            “I’m in great with the Boss,” Johnny said. “I murdered a bunch of guys and they seemed real impressed. They’re waging war with the Vultures.”

            “Anything on Bradshaw?”

            “Nothing yet. I’m thinking I might get more out of their lieutenants, Shaundi seems real chatty. Carlos is edgy though. Potential risk. Haven’t met Pierce yet.”

            “Carlos Mendoza? I’m looking at his file. Mostly charges for motor vehicle theft, fencing, one for affray… Pretty toned-down, considering the company he keeps.”

            “He’s thinks I’m taking his job. He’s been with the Boss a long fuckin’ time.”

            “Any leads on what their name is?”

            “Fuck no, everyone just calls them the Boss. I don’t think that’s a line of inquiry worth pursuing.”

            “I bet I could find out,” Matt said.

            “I bet you fifty dollars that you can’t,” Kinzie said.

            “You’re on,” Matt said, dashing to his computer.

            “Yo, I want to call Eesh before midnight, let’s cut the games. What’s going on with Forester?” Johnny said.

            “I haven’t been able to find anymore emails between him and Troy,” Kinzie hissed. “I haven’t gotten a chance to look deeper for Troy’s account- _hello_ Chief Forester, it’s nice of you to drop in.” She was facing away from the screen but glanced back at Johnny with alarmed eyes. Matt panicked and turned his monitor off.

            “Gat, I’ve been hoping to speak to you,” Forester said. “We got reports of shooting at the Stilwater Caverns. You know anything about that?”

            “Yeah, that was the Saints. They’re fighting the Vultures right now,” Johnny said. “Vulture meth lab in the empty caverns.”

            “Good. Maybe they’ll wipe each other out,” Forester said. “No skin off our back.”

            “That’s exactly what Chief Monroe tried to do and the Saints blew him up with an RPG.”

            “Maybe step in before they get to that point, John. Are you connecting with the others?”

            “Yes.”

            “Good… Glad to hear it. I’ll leave to your handlers.” Forester made like he was about to leave before coming to a stop and turning back to the webcam. Kinzie’s eye twitched. “Just… One last thing, one last thing. I really want to avoid having other officers be put at risk. You are doing everything you can to avoid conflict with your co-workers?”

            “What?”

            “You cannot kill or hurt any other officers, Gat. You understand me?”

            “What?”

            “It’s not like you _want_ to hurt your other officers, is it?”

            “No…?”

            “Then there’s no problem. Under no circumstances.”

            Forester left the room before Johnny could respond. Johnny looked back to Kinzie and Matt and in mutual confused silence. He didn’t like Forester’s insistence.

            “Any leads on the security footage?” He asked, just to have something to say.

            “None yet,” Kinzie said. “But we’re going to find it.”

            “I gotta call Eesh,” he said. “But you let me know as soon as you have anything.” He hesitated a second before he ended the call. “Kinzie, can you send me the audio from Troy’s tapes?”

            “Yeah, sure,” she said. “Do you think you’re going to need it?”

            “I got a feeling,” he said. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow or whatever.”

            He felt better the second Aisha’s face was on-screen.

            “You miss me?” She said.

            “Not even a little,” he lied.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing this chapter was a nightmare. I hate writing fight scenes. I'm never going to write another fight scene every again. Every time there needs to be a fight scene in the fic there'll be some absurd contrived set of coincidences that prevent everyone from shooting a gun. It'll absolutely ruin the fic but I will never have to step outside of my comfort zone as a writer and isn't that what's important here?


	5. Mole-Men

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Johnny envies other people's sweet guns

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A more accurate description for this chapter would be "in which the author shows off the fact it thinks it's super good at writing dialogue".

            Last Man Standing was in the church when Johnny got there, with the exact same group of people he’d beaten the shit out of the day before. None of them except Last Man were quite willing to meet his eye. Last Man on the other hand, was grinning like he’d just seen his best friend for the first time in years.

            “Hi Johnny!” He said.

            “Hello…” Johnny said, trying and failing to remember Last Man’s name. “Last Man Standing?”

            “It’s Judas,” Last Man said, completely unbothered by the nickname. He jumped and up and followed Johnny when he moved away from the very unfriendly glares he was getting from Judas’ crew.

            “ _Judas_?” He said.

            “I know, isn’t it messed up?” Judas/Last Man laughed with his bizarrely nervous giggle. “What are you up to?”

            “The Boss wanted me to be here,” Johnny said. “Yo, do you know what the hell is up with that Carlos guy? He’s somethin’ else.”

            Judas/Last Man pulled a face. “He’s uh… He’s a scary guy, huh? I don’t really know what happened to him… He’s been with the Saints _forever_. He’s real jealous of you and the Boss I bet.”

            “What do you mean ‘me and the Boss’?”

            “N-nothin’ bro, I wasn’t… Uh… So you’re not from the Row, right? I mean, I’ve never seen you around…”

            “Born here. Grew up in Steelport.”

            “Steelport?” Judas/Last Man smiled.

            “Bridgeport.”

            “I’ve got friends in Bridgeport.”

            “Me too,” Johnny joked, slightly wanting the conversation to end.

            The Boss walked in with Shaundi, her laughing at something that they had said, them still oddly stone-faced. They nodded to Johnny, beckoning him to come over. Judas/Last Man waved a little too enthusiastically as Johnny walked away. He made a mental note to spend less time with Judas/Last Man. He had spent relatively little time with Judas/Last Man, and if he had a choice he’d like it to stay that way.

            “We’re meeting with the leader of the Vultures in the trailer park,” the Boss said.

            “ _Papa Wizard_ ,” Shaundi said, smirking. “Who the fuck _chooses_ to go by that?”

            “Someone who needs to get the shit kicked out of them,” the Boss said. “Gat, let’s go.”

            The three of them headed out of the church and to the very expensive purple SUV outside. The Boss took the driver’s seat and Shaundi took passenger, leaving Johnny to the backseat again.

            “Quasar,” Johnny said appreciatively, wondering when he’d be upgraded to shotgun. “Very nice.”

            “Thanks,” Shaundi said.

            “It’s yours?”

            “What, I don’t look like a Quasar girl?”

            “You don’t look like a car at all. How come you don’t drive?”

            “Boss always drives,” Shaundi said. The Boss nodded in silent agreement.

            They drove up onto the freeway, barrelling their way past other cars, at several points almost bullying people straight off the bridge. When they shot off the freeway and into Union Square the car actually got air for a few seconds, before crashing back down on the ground and coming perilously close to losing control. This was, apparently, fine to everyone and not worthy of comment. And through Union Square they headed through the Suburbs, until the trailer park began to grow up along the road.

            Elysian Fields was much the same as it had always been; it had been part of Ultor’s renovation project, but they’d been kicked out of Stilwater before they’d had a chance to finish it and it looked like the place was going to remain half-built forever. Johnny didn’t know it that well. It had a lot of petty crime, but that was shit for regular officers to deal with, not fucking lieutenants. He was just glad it meant he probably wasn’t going to be recognised at all. He hadn’t considered that possibility much. At least Brimstone had to be behind bars by now.

            The trailer park itself wasn’t one of the worst areas of Stilwater, despite being half-finished, mostly a large barren area of land with a dirt road looping through. The place had filled up pretty quickly after Ultor had kicked everyone out of the Row, and the amount of families there had only increased over the last couple of years. There were a few stores to one side of the park, but for the most part it was just rows and rows of trailers and caravans, sitting in their own fenced-off areas of land. People didn’t look thrilled when the SUV pulled in; the place had been almost destroyed by the Saints during their fight with the Samedi and there was a general level of mistrust towards the Saints in the neighbourhood. Ultor had been around to fix the damage the first time, but that hadn’t been the case for a while. It wasn’t surprising that a new gang had been able to find support there, if it meant there’d be some opposition to the Saints.

            They stopped near an aging, closed-down store that claimed to be called ‘E dy End he Roa’, which set the tone for the upcoming meeting. The Boss eyeballed Shaundi slightly nervously.

            “Are you sure about this?” They said.

            “Oh, we’re not going in there,” she said.

            “Good.”

            “There’s a cave beside the water tower, everyone’s in there,” Shaundi said. The Boss groaned.

            “ _Vultures_ , more like fuckin’ mole-men,” Johnny grumbled.

            They walked to what appeared to be a metal frame set into the side of a hill, blue-painted corrugated metal unconvincingly covering the hole. The Boss kicked the metal aside, revealing the opening of a tunnel that was walled with rock that faded into compacted dirt. They took the first few dubious steps inside, into darkness lit only occasionally by sporadically placed bulbs hanging from a sparking black cable. The cable ran across the ceiling and deep inside, weighted down by the cobwebs that covered everywhere you couldn’t walk. Johnny kept his head low to try and avoid getting them tangled in his hair. The air was musty and strangely hot, and was vibrating around them with the hum of energy. He couldn’t identify a source but the whole tunnel constantly thrummed as they walked, like they were burying into the heart of an enormous generator.

            It was a few steps before any of them noticed a skull embedded into the dirt wall. Shaundi saw one first, doing a comic double-take before leaning in closer to inspect it, clearly hoping that it wouldn’t be real before accepting that it had to be. She laughed a little, but didn’t find the first coffin they stumbled on rammed into the dirt anywhere near as funny. There was more than one, open and exposed in the tunnel walls or floor. Plastic faces loomed out at them from the walls too, the paint scratched off and smashed out of proportion. The place was grotesque.

            Grotesque and empty. They hadn’t met anyone yet, wandering on in the stinking darkness by themselves, the atmosphere of the place making it hard to want to crack jokes. The Boss was uncharacteristically grim; silent in a very deliberate, calculating fashion, eyes doubt-filled and constantly searching. It took a little more walking alone through the dirt until they reached a larger area, a space that could almost be called a room, where a man sat in a deckchair surrounded by his lieutenants, all of them dressed in Vulture blue.

            The man was probably in his sixties, owner of an impressive white beard, and far more clean and well-dressed than you would expect of someone who chose to set up shop in a tunnel full of old coffins and human remains. He was smiling politely, his lieutenants all trying their hardest to seem intimidating, but the Boss didn’t so much as attempt to look any less furious.

            “You’re the one they all call ‘Boss’, eh?” The man- Papa Wizard- said. “You’re just a kid! All of you, just children!”

            “What the fuck do you want?” Boss said.

            “What’s the rush? Let’s all just calm down, now,” Papa Wizard said. Johnny somewhat hated indulging the man by using the ridiculous name.

            “What _fuck_ do you _want_?”

            “You know why you’re so angry, kid? You’re missing something in your life. You never got to live your life the way it was supposed to go, did you? Everyone else always makes choices for you.”

            “The fuck you say?”

            “Don’t presume to think you can intimidate me,” Papa Wizard said with a contented smirk that made the Boss swell with barely contained rage. “All your life, people have decided what you’re going to do _for_ you. Why, you didn’t even decide to join the Saints, did you? You’ve dedicated your life to them, but all that was just because Julius decided you were worth saving.”

            “What do _you_ know about me and Julius?”

            “I knew Julius. Good man. Whatever happened to him?”

            “I don’t know,” the Boss said, “and I don’t care. I’m not here to play catch-up with you. If you don’t have something worth saying-”

            “I don’t know why you think you need to go rushing around like this. We’re adults, we should be perfectly capable of having a pleasant conversation. I can’t think of a successful business deal I’ve ever had that started with everyone involved acting like petulant children.” Papa Wizard lit a cigarette and offered the packet around, but no one took him up on it. “Your girl here decided for you that you should be spending your valuable time with me, so you should respect that. If you’re going to have other people calling the shots for you, you might as well follow through. I do find it amusing that you’ve carried on the Saints name. Is it what Julius would have wanted, do you think?”

            “I don’t know.”

            “I never thought riches was really what Julius cared about. Clearly you have different priorities. Protégés never do end up like their mentors, do they? That’s alright, that’s alright, you’re your own person. Don’t need to live his life. Do you know why I wanted to talk to you?”

            “You’re trying to assassinate me by boring me to death?”

            “We both know how weak the Saints drug trade is. And you messed it up again, didn’t you? Had a good thing going with that nice Satanist group before you blew one of them up and now you’re back scrambling for whatever you can get. It’s a bit sad. When my little gang heard about that I felt like there was a good opportunity for the both of us. We came all the way down to little old Stilwater just for the business.”

            “Fuck off.”

            “That’s a very valid counter-argument. I think you’d be better off in the long run taking me up on my offer. Vultures and Saints working arm-in-arm. You can keep all the attention and all the publicity, of course, you can be the big name. We’ll just keep to the background, do the grunt work. What have you got to lose? Don’t say your dignity, because I think you lost that with the fellow in the chicken suit and the septic truck.”

            “I don’t work with other gangs. You can’t trust anyone.”

            “Well that’s a very sad way to live. You don’t even want to hear my offer?”

            “The last time someone offered me a shit deal I burnt his face off and tortured him to death. You sure you want to offer me anything?”

            “Would this be the same potential business partner who removed most of the skin from your right-hand man?” Papa Wizard stood up, brushing imaginary dust from his suit lapels. “There’s always collateral damage, isn’t there?”

            Shaundi took a step forward in anger but the Boss held her back for a second, hand in front of her. It took Johnny a second to notice that they were slipping her their phone, Shaundi taking it from their hand and sliding it into her pocket. The Boss smiled at Papa Wizard then, a smile so tight that it looked like it was going to snap like an old elastic band. Papa Wizard didn’t seem to register the insincerity.

            “If we’re going to use your labs I want a look at them,” the Boss said.

            “That seems fair,” Papa Wizard said. “I’m glad you’re seeing some reason.”

            They headed out of the tunnel and the bite of cold air sweeping in from the bay was a massive relief, even if the cold ate right through the material of Johnny’s shirt. He’d take goddamn snowstorm with no complaints if it meant not having to go back into that tunnel. He was not someone who was easily upset, but that place qualified as a complete hellhole.

            He trailed after the Boss as Papa Wizard lead them all to his trailers, Johnny dragging his feet on the dirt track as he walked, wondering a little what the Boss’ angle here was. There was no chance that they were actually going to make a deal, he didn’t believe that for a moment and he didn’t have a clue how Papa Wizard had managed to delude himself into thinking his pitch had worked. Maybe he was just seeing what he wanted to see. Johnny couldn’t really predict what the old man was going to do next. He knew he didn’t trust him.

            The trailers the Vultures used were pathetically obvious. Hiding drug manufacturing from the police wasn’t really a major concern; it was whether or not you were hidden from the Saints was what you needed to worry about. And overall the Vultures hadn’t done a great job of it. The trailers had blacked out windows and the area around them stunk, the grass itself killed by the toxicity of the fumes leaking out. Johnny would have been able to spot them in half a second if he’d been walking around by himself. It didn’t help that there were obvious Vulture guards lurking nearby, keeping a watchful eye on the three Saints daring to set foot where they weren’t wanted.

            Shaundi looked the trailers over and shook her head, obviously unimpressed. She had one of her hands conspicuously in her pocket and Johnny guessed she was texting and trying to conceal it. The Boss was taking Papa Wizard for some kind of ride here. The man still hadn’t figured that the Boss was having him on, somehow.

            “These six trailers, these are all mine,” Papa Wizard said. “They’re all fully operational labs. I’m looking into getting more of them too, as soon as we finish convincing a few of the locals to move on. But these aren’t our only locations, of course. But out growth has been massively restricted by… Well, by you people.”

            “You’re just buying up the whole park?” Shaundi said.

            “Money isn’t really an issue,” Papa Wizard said. “We’ve got funding from some very good friends. You could get to know them too, if I put in a good word for you.”

            The Boss smiled patronizingly but didn’t say anything.

            “These trailers are a mess,” Shaundi said. “You’re not even ventilating properly. Do you have any idea what you’re doing? Because it seems to me like you would probably be more comfortable managing company mergers.”

            “That’s not very polite,” Papa Wizard said, his voice turning cold. “You’re going to just let your subordinates act like that?”

            “Don’t fucking talk about my friends like that,” the Boss said, any faux-politeness gone.

            Papa Wizard looked like he was puffing up to go on another rant but he was cut off by the roar of approaching engines. He turned to look and was dismayed to see a veritable horde of Saints cars approaching, led by Carlos’ Cosmos. Carlos came to a screaming halt roughly fifteen inches away from them, tires throwing up dirt behind it. He stepped out, the other Saints slowing to a stop and forming a kind of semi-circle around the group, caging them in.

            “Your text says ‘six traumas’ but I’m going to guess you meant trailers,” Carlos said, reaching into the back of the car and pulling out a flamethrower. “I figured that out from the context.”

            “Well done,” Shaundi said, more than a little sarcastically. “Regular Sherlock Holmes.”

            “I could try traumatising six people as well, if you want,” Carlos shrugged, holding the flamethrower at his hip. It was a big blocky ugly thing and Johnny _wanted_ it.

            “Oh look!” The Boss said. “It’s my right-hand man. Maybe you want to talk to him about how sad it makes you that he’s got some scars. But then again, maybe he’s not going to be reasonable. What do you think, Carlos? You here to be reasonable?”

            “I’m here to burn down some meth labs,” Carlos said. “Sounds pretty reasonable to me.”

            The other Saints were waiting on stand-by, a few of them carrying flamethrowers similar to the one Carlos was lugging after him, all the rest armed to the teeth. They definitely outnumbered the Vulture guards present, and probably the Vultures on-hand in Elysian Fields. The guards standing around the trailers suddenly looked like they slightly regretted agreeing to come in to work that day. Papa Wizard was outraged beyond words, looking at the Boss with a slack jaw and a face reddening with rage.

            “I don’t think I’m interested in working with you,” the Boss said, “but I think I’m very interested in you getting the fuck out of my city. You have twenty-four hours. I think that’s more than _reasonable_.”

            They turned away from the trailers and started walking, Johnny and Shaundi following. They nodded Carlos through and he hoisted the flamethrower up and ready.

            “You’re going to regret this!” Papa Wizard yelled.

            “If you say so,” the Boss said, not slowing their walk as the first of the trailers went up in flames. “Meet at Pierce’s when you’re done, Carlos. We all need to have a talk.”

* * *

            ‘Pierce’s’ had once been Poseidon’s Palace, a casino owned by the Ronin. But after the Ronin had been run out of town, the towering hotel/casino- a building that dominated the entirety of Stilwater Boardwalk- had been replaced with the Saints’ own operation and rebranded. The tacky nautical theme had been stripped out and replaced with equally tacky but a lot more eye-catching purple neon. All subtlety had been systematically murdered, but now the place was the only part of the boardwalk people could pay attention to, and the Saints had reaped the financial benefits of that. Market domination through sheer inescapability.

            The inside of the casino was filled with the constant chirruping percussion of slot machines jangling, the hum of music played through tinny speakers. At three o’clock in the afternoon the place was still full of people, working the fruit machines and staking out the poker tables, loitering around the bar already. Johnny guessed most of them were probably guests at the hotel, but he knew a lot of them probably just didn’t have anything better to be doing in Stilwater in the mid-afternoon. It was a shithole of a city.

            A man in a white suit and a leg brace walked down the stairs at the back of the casino, flinging his arms open when he saw the Boss. The two hugged, the man in the suit then clapping hands with Shaundi in a complicated handshake. He looked at Johnny and paused, not sure who Johnny was or what his relationship to the others was.

            “Johnny Gat, Pierce Washington, Boss’ new favourite murder pal, Boss’ old favourite singing buddy,” Shaundi said.

            “That’s an unfounded accusation,” the Boss said.

            “Who you calling old?” Pierce said. “What are you guys doing here, anyway?”

            “Group meeting,” Boss said. “As soon as Carlos gets here.”

            “With, uh, with the new guy?” Pierce said. “No offence,” he said to Johnny.

            “Yeah.” The Boss shrugged. “Why not?”

            They headed up the stairs Pierce had just walked down, leading the group up to Pierce’s office. They sat down on the desk like a huge purple couch wasn’t dominating half the room. The room was obviously styled to fit Pierce’s personal tastes, gaudy purple wallpaper and polished walnut panelling. There were a surprising amount of photos of Pierce himself, and a couple of records Johnny had never heard of, but the centrepiece was the two sniper rifles set on the wall behind Pierce’s desk. They were the biggest sniper rifles Johnny had ever seen. He wanted them, too.

            “What particular set of skills do you bring to the table, Johnny?” Pierce asked, sitting at the chair behind the desk and passing the Boss a beer from some out of sight cooler. Johnny sat down on the enormous couch with Shaundi.

            “I’m really good at murderin’ stuff,” Johnny said.

            “He is,” the Boss said, tossing Johnny a beer. “Real good. Almost as good as me.”

            “ _Almost_ ,” Johnny snorted. “I could kick your ass any day.”

            “Yeah?”

            “Yeah.”

            “ _Yeah?_ ”

            “Please stop flirting in front of us,” Shaundi said, opening a beer herself. “It’s still business hours.”

            Johnny tried to laugh it off and the Boss gave Shaundi the coldest look he’d ever seen. She rolled her eyes at them but they didn’t look appeased by this.

            “So where’s Carlos at?” Pierce said.

            “Burning down Vulture meth labs,” the Boss said.

            “Oh, destroying stuff,” Pierce said. “Now that’s _his_ valuable skill.”

            “He is good at it,” Shaundi said.

            There was a dynamic here Johnny didn’t have a place in yet and he could feel it. The others were used to each other, they were comfortable. They knew each other. He was still very much an outsider and he knew his presence disrupted the group a little. They were more than just co-workers, fellow gangsters, they were friends. He wasn’t used to seeing this kind of closeness amongst lieutenants. Other gangs, they worked on respect and fear. And it wasn’t like no one respected the Boss- they clearly did- but it wasn’t awe-filled terror. It was hard-earned friendship. Somehow that made _him_ respect the Boss a little more.

            From downstairs came the sound of raised voices. The others looked unalarmed by this and it was a moment later when Carlos walked in with a face like thunder. This wasn’t the first time this had happened, he was guessing. Carlos’ scars weren’t exactly the kind you could disguise, and they had to get a reaction out of some people. On top of that, he was covered in what looked like ash and oil. Pierce smiled sympathetically at him but he didn’t respond other than a nonverbal grunt, sitting on the couch next to Shaundi and folding his arms. He sunk into the sofa morosely.

            Everyone was waiting for him to speak but he didn’t, letting the air of general gloom surrounding him infect the feel in the air. The Boss clearly wanted some status report but Carlos was too angry to speak.

            “Yo, are those yours?” Johnny said to Pierce. Pierce looked up at the sniper rifles hanging on the wall and then grinned.

            “Yeah,” he said. “I don’t do a lot of field work anymore but I still keep myself useful. I’m the best shot you’ll ever meet.”

            “Shoot the wings off a fly,” Shaundi said.

            “I had a boss who said he could do that once,” Johnny said. “Gloated. So one day there’s a fly in the room. We say, go ahead, try it. He shot the fuckin’ fly out of the air. ‘Course a bullet is a lot bigger than a fly so he _obliterated_ the thing but he did it.”

            There had never been a point in his life when he’d imagined that he’d be telling a group of gangsters he wanted to impress about his police chief. Forester really was a crack shot though.

            “Bullshit,” Pierce said.

            “You callin’ me a liar?”

            “Yeah I’m calling you a liar because that is _bull-shit_ ,” Pierce laughed.

            “You had a boss once?” Carlos said, his voice fifty degrees lower than the Antarctic.

            “Yeah,” Johnny said, “long time ago.”

            “So you were in another gang before you joined the Saints?” Carlos said. The smile slipped from Johnny’s face. Carlos was staring at him with his one good eye like he was trying to bore a hole into Johnny’s fucking soul.

            “What, Johnny was in a gang once before so we can never trust him?” Shaundi said. “Is that what you’re saying?”

            He wasn’t used to Shaundi sounding so obviously vicious. She sounded _bitter_. Carlos was shut up immediately, jaw snapping shut like a trap. He looked away, mumbling an inaudible apology. Shaundi leaned back in the couch but there was a tenseness to the way she folded her arms that suggested she wasn’t about to accept Carlos’ apology just yet. It was obvious why Shaundi was upset and it had nothing at all to do with Johnny. It was an open wound if he’d ever seen one.

            He’d definitely grown to like Shaundi the little time he’d known her, she was confident and charming in her straight-forwardness, and he hadn’t foreseen this little complication. There was something more to Shaundi than what was on the surface and that made her a very real threat. The fact that she was so clearly good at hiding what she was thinking and hiding her tracks made her dangerous. The others could be researched. He didn’t even have Shaundi’s name. And at the same time, she was so friendly. Unpredictability seemed to be a trait all the Saints shared. Johnny wondered if he qualified. They probably wouldn’t predict him being a cop.

            The other thing that the Saints shared was that they all left him with the uncomfortably gnawing feeling that they were far too easily becoming his friends.

            “Carlos, did you or did you not get all the Vultures labs?” The Boss said.

            “Yeah, me and my crew sorted it,” Carlos said, talking into his own chest. “Couldn’t fucking get a hold of Judas _again_ , I’m going to kick that guy’s ass…”

            “Good,” the Boss said. “I don’t want you to stop there. They have more. Find them. Wreck them. I don’t want a trace of them in my city.”

            Carlos nodded. The others waited for their directions but the Boss had something else on their mind.

            “Over the last year gangs have repeatedly tried to invade Stilwater from the outside. The Damsels, Blackjack, Vultures, Devil’s Seven… All of them have come here fully formed and wanting to push _us_ out. Papa Wizard said today that he had _friends_. I don’t think all these gangs came here coincidentally. I think they’re working together. Someone is sending them here to take us down.”

            There was a confused silence. Johnny looked around at the others, all of whom were staring at the Boss. Shaundi seemed to be entertaining the idea but Pierce shook his head. Carlos was the first one to speak, his mind already made up.

            “There’s no way,” he said. “There’s nothing that links these gangs. They don’t do the same things, they don’t come from the same places, they don’t have the same M.O. The Vultures wanted to work with us, the Damsels tried to have us killed. Blackjacks fixed boxing matches, those freaks in the masks had protection rackets…”

            “I thought we all agreed to never talk about them again,” Pierce said.

            “Yeah, yeah. My point is, the Vultures probably come from some kind of Family,” Carlos continued. “There’s no reason to assume they’re any more connected to the Devil’s Seven than the Brotherhood were to the Ronin.”

            “It does kind of seem like you’re jumping to conclusions,” Shaundi said.

            “The Ronin and the Brotherhood were both working for Ultor,” the Boss said. “Differences don’t mean anything when you’re getting paid.”

            There was still a general feeling of not being very convinced. Johnny himself wasn’t ready to marry the theory but he wasn’t going to shoot it out of the air, either. If anything, it kept the Boss busy.

            “Pierce, I want you researching all the gangs who’ve come for us. I want _everything_ about them, where they came from, where they get their money, if there’s anyone left. I want the ins and fucking outs of every goddamn group. Shaundi, I want you on the Devil’s Seven. Find out where they’ve gone.” The Boss stepped off the desk. “And Carlos, I want Papa Wizard cornered like a rat in a shitty suit if he’s not gone by tomorrow.”

            There were no arguments. Orders were understood. Johnny looked up at the Boss expectantly and they jerked their head, indicating that they wanted him to follow.

            “You stick with me,” they said. “We’re going on a trip.”

* * *

             The docks in the Suburbs weren’t where Johnny expected them to stop. It surprised him even more to find out that the Boss owned not one dock, but two, with one down in the university. He wouldn’t have taken the Boss as someone who liked sailing, for many reasons. Boat explosions being one of them. The Boss not being a rich upper-class middle-aged twit was another.

            The Boss walked to the end of the wooden pier, stopping by a moderately sized purple speedboat. They were looking out over the water. It was calm, waves gently lapping against some of the smaller boats, bobbing them a little. You could have almost said the water was… _Still_. Johnny swallowed back his laughter, deciding he was going to tell the Boss that one. They spoke before he got a chance to.

            “Let me take a look at your gun,” they said. That threw him a little. He pulled his handgun from his belt and they looked it over for a second, turning it back and forth in their hands. They themselves were carrying streamlined SMGs, expensive and well-used.

            In one motion they dropped Johnny’s handgun- which bounced off the wood floor of the dock and slid straight into the sea, sinking like a rock- and pulled one of their own guns out.

            “Hey, I brought that from home-!” Johnny said, before being interrupted by the muzzle of the SMG being thrust into his throat. That would shut anybody up.

            The Boss didn’t say anything, just looking at Johnny in a coldly detached fashion. The other people around the docks were backing away, turning and running for the hills, scrambling over themselves to get out and get away as quickly as possible. You had to have a healthy sense of self-preservation to survive in Stilwater.

            “Boss?” Johnny said, feeling the gun rub up against his Adam’s apple when he swallowed. He wasn’t afraid, but he certainly very confused, and wondering how much he was going to have to do to defend himself. Fighting the Boss sounded like some kind of nightmare scenario but he wasn’t going to go down easy. He wasn’t going to let the Boss execute him on the dock in broad daylight.

            “So who the fuck are you?” The Boss said, finally. “You said you were in another gang before. Why’d you leave? Who were they? Samedi? Ronin? Brotherhood? If it was fuckin’ Brotherhood then this is going to end up being a very short conversation.”

            “None of those,” Johnny said. “I wasn’t in any gangs in Stilwater. I haven’t lived here for years. And why the fuck does it matter? Shaundi was-”

            “And when Shaundi defected to the Saints I had words with her too,” the Boss said. “I didn’t get to where I am today by _trusting_ people.”

            “I left them. I’m a Saint now.”

            “Why?” The Boss said. “Why’d you leave and why the Saints?”

            “Why the Saints?! Yo, what gang out there can step to the fuckin’ Saints?”

            “Flattering.”

            “My old gang…” Johnny tried to think. It was surprisingly hard to think up lies on the spot, and hard to do it with a gun wedged into your throat and no guarantee you wouldn’t just get killed anyway. “I joined when I was a kid. They were supposed to have… _Ideals_ , but in the end they were fucked. And they didn’t trust _me_ because I wouldn’t agree with _them_ , and because I wasn’t there for the cash.”

            He wasn’t sure when he’d stopped trying to lie and just started talking about the cops. He couldn’t tell if the Boss was unconvinced or buying every word. He wasn’t sure he liked being this honest.

            “What were you in it for?” The Boss asked.

            “Big guns and free murder,” Johnny said.

            The Boss grinned. They took the gun away from Johnny’s throat and handed it to him instead. He was relieved both for the ability to breathe and the comforting feeling of the handle in his hand.

            “I didn’t actually mean to drop your gun in the water,” the Boss said, almost an apology.

            “Don’t worry about,” Johnny said. “This one’s better.”

            The Boss stepped into the boat and he followed, taking the passenger seat as they turned on the engine. The boat roared, taking off from the dock with some force. Stilwater shrank behind them as they shot across the water so fast Johnny was thrown back into his seat, his glasses slipping from his face. He realised he didn’t even know where they were going, so unquestioning he had been in his obedience.

            “Where the fuck are we going?” He asked, shouting a little to be heard over the rush of wind.

            “Stilwater prison,” the Boss said.

            “The prison? How the fuck are we going to get into a prison?”

            “Please, I used to walk into the joint whenever I felt like it to fight in the yard.”

            Johnny laughed. “And why are we breaking _into_ prison?”

            “Word is Brimstone got herself locked up,” the Boss said. “And if she’s hiding then she’s worth finding.”


	6. Brokejail

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Stilwater Prison is made into a laughing stock

           Stilwater Prison rose up out of the water in a towering cluster of stone, the waves crashing eternally against the brown rock as the penitentiary itself stood high above the water. The prison was made of grey and black brick and was rotten through and through. It only took up a small part of the island but it sucked the colour out of the sky, an isolated void cast out from the mainland, a blot on the horizon that your eye could never pass over. It existed within its own timezone; Rollerz and Vice King graffiti was still plastered on the walls of the yard, people wore their Brotherhood tattoos openly with pride, the symbols still held meaning. People didn’t believe in the all-encompassing power of the Saints. The prison was its own world.

           The isolation of the prison was intended to prevent prisoners from escaping but the Boss and Carlos were living proof it didn’t work. All it really prevented prisoners from having was any chance at readjusting to the outside world after being imprisoned for years. Stilwater Correctional had to have the worst rehabilitation rate in the country. There were riots on almost a bi-weekly basis. It was the closest thing to a vision of pure hell Johnny could imagine. He’d visited it a few times and never wanted to spend more than a few minutes in the place if he could help it. He didn’t doubt the Boss’ claim that there were illegal fighting rings for a second. The guards here had as much reason to be locked up as the prisoners did. Johnny knew a few of them. He did not like them.

           There was no stealth to the Boss’ approach. They crashed the boat into the front dock, coming perilously close to running aground. The two of them clambered out of the boat, leaving it rocking in the water, walking up the stone steps as a spotlight drifted over their heads. It ignored them entirely, letting them walk on down the island towards the road that led up the hill to the prison. They passed the huge brown stone buildings that served as employee housing, almost indistinguishable from the actual prison blocks. There were a couple of guards standing outside one of the buildings on their right but neither so much as looked up at the two of them as they walked right on up the road.

           “You ever been in prison?” The Boss asked.

           “Yeah,” Johnny said, not technically a lie, although obviously not what the Boss had meant. “You?”

           “Yeah,” the Boss said. “Mostly in a coma.”

           “What was that like?”

           “Like a really painful nap.”

           The road wound up the side of the island, eventually coming out to the front of the prison, a huge door surrounded by brown and white glass, a hideous orange stained glass pattern set above it. The windows were all barred and almost opaque from filth, providing very little view into the no-doubt welcoming interior of the prison. The Boss didn’t try the front door anyway, moving round the side to an unlocked gate. To the left was a bridge that led to what had to be the warden’s house, a huge Victorian mansion overlooking the ocean and the rest of the island. The Boss gave it a look of distaste, pushing open the gate. The rusted metal screeched on the concrete floor but didn’t resist.

           “How are we gonna find Brimstone in this place?” Johnny said.

           “I normally just know where stuff is,” the Boss said.

           “Where is she then?”

           The Boss paused and looked up at the prison.

           “I don’t know,” they said, finally. Johnny glared at the back of their head and wished they wouldn't be so obtuse. 

           The spotlight swung over their heads and Johnny ducked out of the light instinctually, pressing up against a wall, the words OBEDIENCE TO THE LAW IS FREEDOM stamped above his head. He felt that was a little ham-fisted, even if he was a cop. The Boss didn’t seem that concerned about staying hidden however, continuing up the stairs with a confident stride. The way they walked you would have thought they owned the place, rather than being one of the people who the penitentiary was supposed to confine. Of course, in the Boss’ mind, they did own it. They owned everything around them.

           When the Boss had broken out of prison, Johnny had been one of the first to demand they were hunted down. Troy had claimed the police didn’t have the resources to hunt down  _one_  person when there were so many gangs already running riot. It had been a weak cover then and it was painfully obvious now that Troy just didn’t want to have to arrest his friends. The man’s loyalty had been as infuriating as it had been unwarranted. The Boss sure as hell didn’t seem to care.

           They entered the prison through door 3C, the Boss immediately kicking open the barred door of the holding cell the divided the waiting area from the prison. Through the holding cell they reached a hallway. The mess hall was in front, the Infirmary to the left, a door marked as STAFF ONLY to their left. The prisoners milling around the mess hall looked at the two of them, some of them not knowing what was happening, others recognising the Boss and either making their exit or cheering them on. But the guards had started to take notice too, and that was far worse.

           “Cell blocks are through the mess hall and up the stairs,” the Boss said. And then they were off, charging through the hall, bowling a guard over as they sprinted. When the guard hit the ground they barely broke their stride, shooting him through the face without a glance. People were scattering, getting the hell out of the Boss’ way before they met similar fates. Johnny just followed and kept his head down.

           Violence was something Johnny was accustomed to. He’d fought and he’d killed in the line of duty, when that level of self-defence was necessary. He didn’t lose a lot of sleep over it. In all honesty he didn’t understand other people’s fear. A good fight was good fun, and before joining the Saints it had been a  _long_  fucking time since he’d had a good fight. He appreciated the gang for giving him new opportunities to be violent. He’d been repressing that side of himself for some time now and it wasn’t particularly something he liked. Although, he wasn’t going to  _kill_  anyone unless they deserved it. He liked that he was the one making that decision.

           It had been suggested before that he was not a good person. He had ‘suggested’ that he didn’t care.

           The stairwell outside of the mess hall had corridors branching off it but the Boss ignored them and headed up the stairs instead. The first floor had blocks ACD, the second floor above had BFE. It was going to take some time to search them all and Johnny was already losing patience. The Boss kicked open the door to the C block, the block closest to the stairs, and started the search immediately, eyes roaming over rows and rows of cells

           Cells; they were more like  _cages_. The tiny boxes had three concrete walls and bars on the front, and every last one was rammed full of people. Even the walkways were fenced in, the ones up on the second floor completely wrapped in chain-link. You could look up to the ceiling, watch daylight weakly filter in through the dirtied glass or through the eternally spinning blades of the enormous fan embedded there. It didn’t do much in the way of introducing fresh air, the air in the prison was rank with equal amounts of bleach and urine. Johnny looked down through the bars to the ground floor, where a couple of guards were wandering, apparently unconcerned about the break-in. The guards in this city were worse than the cops, which was saying something. Johnny would know.

           C block was uninspiring, curving around into D block, which was similarly free of Brimstone. The noise was unbearable, the constant shouting and hollering of prisoners on top of the whining groans of the piping that ran throughout the entire building. The Boss was beginning to look furious. They threw open the door from D block back into the stairwell and the fact they’d already looped back around was obviously not something they were happy about. They looked at Johnny, obviously expecting some faster solution. Johnny was glad they hadn’t found Brimstone. It hadn’t escaped him that she was going to immediately recognise him. He was going to have to find her before the Boss did. He was going to have to kill her. Boy, the Boss wasn’t going to like that.

           “Why the fuck don’t I know where she is?” They demanded. Johnny shrugged.

           “Regretting this jailbreak?” He said.

           “It’s the opposite of a jailbreak,” the Boss said. “It’s… It’s a brokejail.”

           “Brokejail?”

           “Yeah. Broke into jail. Brokejail. We’re staging a brokejail.”

           “Regretting this brokejail?”

           “I don’t like wasting time.”

           He didn’t feel like suggesting they quit would be well received. He was struck with a sudden idea and was briefly frustrated he hadn’t thought of it sooner.

           “You keep searching and I’m going to go to the offices and see what I can get off the computers up there,” Johnny said. He knew exactly fuck all about computers but the Boss didn’t catch onto the lie. Johnny had never been a good liar. He was renowned for it.

           “Alright,” the Boss said cautiously. “You sure you don’t want me to come with you and protect you for an arbitrary amount of time while you ‘hack’ or whatever?”

           “That’s… Fine. You stay here.”

           The Boss nodded and then Johnny turned, a little worried about leaving them- no, worried wasn’t the right word. Worried implied gentle concern and that wasn’t what he was feeling at all. He was definitely reluctant, leaving their side only begrudgingly. He had an active desire to stay by their side. Where had that come from? And why in the hell? He didn’t have time to ask himself those questions, nor did he have any genuine interest in doing so. He was a busy man. He had to find a gangster so he could murder her. Normal cop stuff.

           He stumbled down the stairwell and ran back through the mess hall, almost tripping over the dead guard. He shoved another guard away when they grabbed for him but didn’t kill them, instead turning left out of the mess hell door and through the Staff Only door. He whipped his phone out, stabbing in Kinzie’s number as he jogged down the corridor. He wanted to get this over with before the Boss got through the whole fucking prison, and he didn’t know how much time he had before they finished up in A block.

           Kinzie answered on the second ring, her voice tinged with confusion. They hadn’t agreed to call at this time after all, and she knew he wouldn’t be ringing if it wasn’t important. She might have even been worried about him. He didn’t know if Kinzie was the worrying type.

           “Johnny?” She said.

           “I’m in Stilwater Penitentiary and I need your help,” Johnny said.

           “What? Did you get arrested?!”

           “No, no me and the Boss brokejail.”

           “Brokejail?”

           “We broke into prison. The Boss is searching for Brimstone, and we can’t find her. I need to find her before the Boss does.”

           “If she sees you she’s going to recognise you. She’s going to know you’re a cop.”

           “Yeah I figured that myself. Where the fuck is she? She got sentenced, right?”

           “She did. She should be in… Huh, that’s funny, it doesn’t say a cell block.”

           “Fuck. Thanks Kinzie. I gotta go.”

           He hung up, cursing to himself again before launching himself up the stairs. He came out at an empty staffroom but didn’t stop, turning and running up the stairs to the office on the top floor. Most of the room was taken up by the desks in the middle of the room, but there was a monitor bank by a window overlooking the cellblocks and mess hall. It was a pretty dismal little room, but it was relatively clean and didn’t reek of urine, which probably made it one of the nicest spots in the prison. Two guards were sitting in front of the monitors, engaged in an argument. Johnny felt an almost physical wave of relief when he realised he knew the both of them. He didn’t have any kind of ID with him and if the guards here  _hadn’t_  known him ‘I swear I’m really a cop’ probably wouldn’t have been convincing.

           “Pete made a fortune betting on that asshole!” One of them said, a man with a chronically bad haircut, and whom Johnny was pretty sure was called something like ‘Dave’ or ‘Bradley’. “They deserve whatever they get!”

           “Pete made a fortune and I wanna make a fortune too, motherfucker!” The other said, a man with a slightly better haircut and unfashionable glasses and a name like ‘Leonard’ or ‘Ron’. He noticed Johnny standing in the doorway and blinked in confusion behind his owlish glasses. “Officer Gat?”

           “Yeah, hi,” Johnny said. “What cell is Micah García in? I need to speak to her.”

           “Micah García? You mean Brimstone? I wasn’t told you were coming by-” Dave and/or Bradley said, looking suddenly very nervous in a way Johnny really didn’t like.

           “Yes, Brimstone. Where  _is_  she?” He said, his voice rising a little. He shut his eyes for a second to breathe, trying to stop himself from exploding. He still needed these guys to help him.

           “She’s not here,” Leonard and/or Ron said, clearly very worried Johnny was going to throw him out of the window.

           “ _What_?” Johnny said, both Dave and/or Bradley and Leonard and/or Ron flinching.

           “She… She never made it to the prison,” Dave and/or Bradley said. “She escaped. Did you not hear?”

           Johnny didn’t know if that was better or worse. There was less immediate risk of being outed but there was a pretty good chance she could fuck him over in the future.

           “Hey,” Leonard and/or Ron said. “Are you going to do something about them?”

           He pointed out the window, out to the Boss, who was on the second floor of cellblocks and had just shot some guard directly through the stomach as prisoners catcalled. The Boss looked up and saw Johnny in the guard’s office, a look of confusion crossing their face. Johnny pointed to the Boss and down to the mess hall, hoping they’d get the message. They stared at him and pointed to themselves and then to the office. He shook his head and then pointed back down at the mess hall again, wildly exaggerating his movements. The Boss looked down at the mess hall and then pointed at Leonard and/or Ron and made a confused gesture. Johnny wildly shook his head and pointed back to the mess hall. The Boss rolled their eyes and then were tackled by another guard.

           Johnny grabbed Leonard and/or Ron by his collar, the man shrieking unpleasantly with fright. He dragged Leonard and/or Ron out of sight of the window and hissed for him to stay put. When he returned the Boss had efficiently slaughtered the other guard. They looked up, and seemed satisfied by Leonard and/or Ron’s absence. They pointed back down to the mess hall and gave Johnny a thumbs up before turning out of sight, hopefully finally heading back downstairs.

           He sprinted down the stairs, past some guards who were taking shelter in the staffroom pretending they didn’t know wanted criminals were loose in the prison, and down to the entrance hall again. A few seconds later the Boss appeared, caught in a struggle with a guard at the bottom of the stairs. Johnny raced to the rescue, cracking the guard on the back of the head with his gun hard enough to knock them out.

           “Brimstone isn’t here,” Johnny said, trying to hide the fact he was a little out breath. “She escaped.”

           “Fuck,” the Boss spat. “We need to get the hell out of here. One of the guards called in the fucking cops.”

           “Too scared to even try and take us,” Johnny laughed.

           “Damn right,” the Boss said. “Alright let’s go, I know a way out of here.”

           The Boss lead him back into the stairwell, but didn’t go up to the cell blocks. Instead they went through a door labelled ‘facilities’, following the long curving corridor to another hallway. There was a door tucked under a flight of stairs. They pulled it open, revealing what Johnny guessed was some kind of maintenance closet. It was full of cobwebs, choked with dust and grime, and hot enough to make Johnny sweat uncomfortably underneath his shirt. The door slammed shut behind him, sealing them off. He heard footsteps but no one tried the door. They were safe, but he couldn’t see a way out of the room other than back out of the door. The Boss hauled themselves up on an A/C unit and gestured for Johnny to follow. Reluctantly, he did.

           The Boss led the way as usual, walking up a long ventilation shaft and up onto some rusted brown pipes and creaked terrifyingly underneath their combined weight. Johnny hoped they would hold. Falling to his death in a weird maintenance tunnel would be a shitty way to go. The Boss clambered further up, up another set of pipes and shafts that groaned and swayed as the two of them marched onwards. A puff of steam made Johnny spring back with surprise, hitting the concrete wall roughly. The Boss laughed.

           “I hope you know what the fuck we’re doing,” Johnny said gruffly.

           “Sure I do,” the Boss said. “This is the way me and Carlos busted out.”

           “That was three years ago! You don’t think they might have sealed it off?”

           “ _Relax_  Johnny.”

           “Hey, I’m just having a sensible level of caution.”

           “Bitch bitch bitch. When you gonna let loose a little?”

           “I’ll let loose my foot up your ass.”

           The continued to ascend, Johnny’s clothes and hands growing dirty from grime and rust, the cobwebs clinging insistently to his hair. After stumbling over another set of ducts they eventually came to what had to be the roof of a floor below. He was grateful to have solid concrete underfoot again, even if they had to crawl along under some inexplicable blocks in the wall for a while. And then they came to a dead end. He looked around with confusion before the Boss climbed up onto another A/C unit. They started straining at a grate screwed into the ceiling, pushing and pulling at it, trying to throw it loose.

           Johnny stepped up beside them, ignoring the cramped conditions, joining their efforts. He shoved up against the bars of the grate, the metal biting into his hands. It resisted and he grunted with frustration, giving it one final, violent jerk before the screws gave out and it ripped out of place. He tossed the grate aside. The Boss looked… Admiring, maybe. He smirked at them.

           They pulled themselves up and out through the grate, offering him an unnecessary hand. He took it however, the two of them working together. He broke out of the tunnel and into the air, stepping onto the roof of the prison, hard gravel and rusting old chain-link fencing. He brushed himself off. The Boss pulled out their phone, calling someone for a pick up. What the hell were they going to get picked up in? A helicopter? That didn’t exactly sound unreasonable for the Saints.

           A bullet streaked past his ear and he jumped back in shock, feeling a sting on the side of his head. He put a hand to his ear and his fingers came back bloody. The Boss looked momentarily stunned and then outraged, turning with a snarl to the source of the shot. Another shot missed again, the Boss not even having to duck to avoid it. Johnny looked up, saw a guard standing round the back of a fire exit. They locked eyes for a second. He could have taken her out without even trying. And he didn’t try. It would have been easy, really, but he wasn’t willing. The Boss had no such reservations. They gave him a funny look.

           “You ever killed someone before?” They said, semi-serious.

           “You know I have,” Johnny snapped. The cameras on the roof caught his attention for a second. He hadn’t considered that everything that had gone on today would have been recorded. Every guard the Boss had taken out, they’d all been caught on film. “Aren’t you going to get the tapes wiped?”

           “Am I going to what the what?”

           “There’s cameras everywhere. You killed a shitload of people today. It’s all on camera.”

           “So? Why the fuck would I ever bother trying to hide that? Is me killing people a secret now?”

           Johnny shook his head and didn’t answer. Boss didn’t hide who they killed. Of course they didn’t. It was a lot of work to cover up a murder, and no one was in any doubt that the Stilwater Butcher loved to kill. Covering it up implied you felt some kind of  _shame_ , that you weren’t the kind of person who flaunted their kills with pride. That you knew murder was wrong. That you were the exact opposite kind of person to the Boss.

           The Boss made a frightening amount of sense to Johnny. He could understand them. They approached life with the same kind of attitude he did; they didn’t give a fuck and they wanted to do what they loved. What they loved being, naturally, killing people who got in their way. What didn’t make sense to Johnny was the story he’d been spun. He was having more trouble understanding his co-workers.

 

* * *

 

            Kinzie knew there was a definite risk to what she was doing but she was also angry enough to feel it was justified. She’d been stressed recently. This Johnny situation was getting to her, disrupting the little sleep she got anyway, paranoia eating away at the back of her mind more than it usually did. She needed to have  _words_  with Forester. About this, and about so much more.

           She  _should_ have had respect for Forester. When Kinzie had first come to Stilwater, Troy had still been in charge and they’d been in pocket with the Saints. Before that, it had been Ultor. Before that, the Vice Kings. The Stilwater Police Department hadn’t been free of outside interference until Forester had come along with his hatred of the Saints and his desire to break away from their funding. That should have been something Kinzie could admire. But she didn’t respect Forester. She didn’t  _like_  him. He wasn’t good at his job. He didn’t care about what he did. When she walked into his office he was already packing up to leave for the day, his expression flitting briefly to anger when he saw that he was going to be delayed. His eyes glanced up to the clock on his wall, like he was calculating how many hours of overtime this conversation took up.

           “Can I help you Kensington?” He said.

           “Why exactly did I find out Brimstone escaped from jail via a text message Lieutenant Gat sent me?” She said, trying to keep her voice steady. She didn’t want him claiming she was  _hysterical_. “Why was I not told about this?”

           “She’s not your case, Kensington,” Forester said, bored already.

           “She knows Lieutenant Gat’s identity,” Kinzie said. “She’s a threat to my operation.”

           “Lots of criminals know his identity, it’s part of the risk of being undercover.”

           “With all due respect sir, why did you even pick Gat for this operation?” She said, not able to really stop herself from asking the question. She didn’t expect a real answer.

           “He’s a good officer,” Forester said, not giving her one.

           “We both know that isn’t true,” Kinzie said. “Johnny is a good friend of mine but he’s… He’s not good cop.”

           It hurt a little to say it but it wasn’t a big secret. They all  _knew_. Johnny wasn’t crooked but he sure as hell wasn’t good at his job either. He might be convinced he  _was_  but the man’s ego was notorious. He was funny and he was charismatic but he was also dreadfully predictable. You couldn’t be surprised when Johnny came back covered in blood and unwilling to fill out an incident report. It was what he  _did_. The man was an itchy trigger finger personified.

           “He only just got off a suspension a month ago,” Kinzie said. “He’s been suspended for unwarranted violence multiple times. He doesn’t even do his paperwork. When you send someone undercover you need a huge operation, you need dozens of officers working on it, you need people to be trained and-”

           “Kensington I don’t know how things worked in the FBI before you got yourself kicked out,” Forester said. “But I’m pretty sure they didn’t encourage this kind of disrespect towards a superior officer. Now if you’d excuse me, I’d like to get home so I can enjoy my wife’s pot roast before it gets cold.”

           Forester didn’t walk past Kinzie, instead waiting for her to back out of his office before he left, locking it behind him. He nodded to her and then was gone, heading out without a care in the world. The only thing he was missing was a jaunty whistle. She stood outside his office and wondered how hard it would be to pick the lock.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The fact you can just walk right into Stilwater Prison always made me laugh and this fic is all about... gently mocking game logic. Like the Boss "knowing where things is" is about the mini-map. The Boss being a video game protagonist and therefore existing outside traditional rules and logic is a whole theme I'm going for here. I'm deep like that.


	7. Painkillers and Bourbon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Aisha tries to buy a fridge and no less than two people are shot in the head

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow okay, it's been a while. In the past month I've been... Not busy at all, but I have been working extensively on planning _another_ Saints Row fanfiction with a friend, the first chapter of which will be up later today! It's also an AU where Johnny is a cop! It is not related to this AU where Johnny is a cop.
> 
> Sorry for the long break. I'll try not to let it happen again. You guys understand. (Understand that I am very lazy).

            “The Saints didn’t set out to make money or to be powerful. Julius wanted to protect people. But I don’t think he remembers that anymore, because I do not like the direction things are taking. Dealing drugs? Running girls? I’m not ok with this. There’s no point talking to Dex about it. He just wants to be the next big success story. Ended up telling Playa of all people, like they’d have any advice for me. Gotta say, kid really is a one-person army.

            “The Saints aren’t like other gangs. I still think there’s some good in them. Maybe Julius will see reason when we clear the other gangs out. I know he’s a good man. He’s not just going to keep thinking about himself. He wants to protect people at heart. There’s no way he’s going to let this gang just become another Vice Kings.”

* * *

            “I mean, you’ve seen Rochelle’s kitchen, right? She’s got that fridge in cream and I am telling you, it just looks _dirty_ in this lighting.”

            “Who the fuck is Rochelle?”

            “From next door Johnny, you know her. You punched her husband once.”

            “Oh, right.”

            “Anyway her kitchen gets the exact same kind of light as ours and her fridge looks dirty. I definitely think we should get one in white again.”

            “Won’t that be harder to keep clean?”

            “Not if you stop spilling things on it all the time, I keep telling you to stop trying to close door without using your hands. If your hands are full put something down first and _then_ close the door, don’t just slam into it, you _always_ end up spilling beer or something all over it.”

            “I do _not_ do that _all_ the time.”

            “Yes you do.”

            “Yeah, yeah, _whatever_. I’ll call you back later. I gotta go.”

            “I miss you Johnny.”

            “You too.”

            Johnny ended the call, putting his phone back into his pocket as he walked to the church. Arguments about fridges and mess were so painfully normal he wondered if he was missing out. He knew he missed her. But if he missed pleasant suburbia that was… Well that was something else.

            “Hey Johnny!”

            He span around on his heel, finding Judas standing behind him at a degree Johnny would describe as ‘uncomfortably close’. He leaned away a little.

            “Have you been following me?” Johnny said.

            “Only for a minute,” Judas said, “I wanted to say hi but you were on the phone.”

            “Don’t follow me around, what’s wrong with you?” Johnny said, shaking his head.

            “Alright man, I just wanted to say hello. I hope Aisha’s ok.” Judas walked off, looking like a 6’3” sad puppy. Johnny was faintly disgusted.  He also wasn’t sure when he’d told Judas about Aisha.

            He didn’t have time to dwell on his thoughts because Shaundi and Carlos were walking past, engaged in an argument. That grabbed his attention, so he jogged after them, wanting to get in on any potentially important conversations. He didn’t want to miss out on anything. He felt excluded enough as it was.

            “The Boss told me to destroy the Vulture labs so I did what I was told,” Carlos said, surly as always, not turning back to look at Shaundi as he walked up the steps to the church.

            “If the Boss told you to jump off a cliff would you do it?” Shaundi said, following him, the three of them walking across the church and towards the backroom that Johnny hadn’t been in before.

            “Yes,” Carlos said.

            “ _Look_ , I’m just saying, there’s nothing wrong with taking a little action, even if it’s not what the Boss said to the letter,” Shaundi said. “I bet Johnny agrees with me. Johnny, do you think Carlos should have saved some of the Vultures’ drug supplies instead of burning it all?”

            “Yeah, I guess that-” Johnny began, hovering in the doorway of the backroom while Carlos and Shaundi made themselves comfortable in a couple of the chairs around the desk. It seemed like the backroom was serving as an office.

            “Here’s a cool fact,” Carlos said, opening a bottle of bourbon. “I don’t give _fuck_ what Johnny thinks.”

            “I’m getting real fuckin’ sick of your attitude,” Johnny said.

            “I’m getting sick of you being around,” Carlos said.

            “Boys, boys, you’re both pretty and I’m sure your dicks are huge,” Shaundi snapped. “You two really need to stop going at each other like this because it is _so_ boring. I don’t want to have to watch it.”

            “I didn’t realise I was upsetting your delicate sensibilities,” Carlos said.

            “Why are you in such a shitty mood today? Have you taken your meds today?”

            “I’m taking them right now.”

            “Carlos, do _not_ wash down your pain meds with bourbon.”

            “Excuse me, fun police.”

            Shaundi rolled her eyes at him as he popped open an orange prescription bottle and threw back a couple of pills. The pills were probably above board, he’d definitely had enough surgery done on what was left of his face to get his hands on a prescription, but he was also being rather more casual with them than he should have. But Johnny wasn’t about to jump in and start getting involved in shit he knew nothing about, especially when there was no chance that it _wouldn’t_ set Carlos off like a bottle rocket. He didn’t need to get his own face burned off. Or whatever the fuck was it that had happened to Carlos.

            The office itself was relatively untouched, not vandalised as heavily as the rest of the church. Apart from the new office furniture and the computer it was mostly still in good condition. There were candles burning on an altar at the back of the room. Someone was putting effort into maintaining this place. Maybe it was important to the Boss. They had history here, after all. He didn’t know. He’d never been sentimental.

            There was chatter from inside the church and he turned, seeing Pierce and the Boss walking inside. Pierce was talking with a huddle of excited Saints, either his crew or his groupies, potentially both. The adoration they had for him was obvious. Johnny noticed he walked with a cane, leaning his weight on the polished dark wood instead of his injured leg. One lieutenant with no face and one with what seemed to be a permanent leg injury. The Saints sure had it rough.

            The Boss saw Johnny loitering in the doorway and smiled with uncharacteristic gentleness before shaking their head and trying to hide the momentary softness behind a frown. He grinned back, and they failed to conceal a smirk.

            Pierce and the Boss joined the others in the office, the Boss dropping a sports bag on the desk. Shaundi leaned over and unzipped it, revealing vacuum-packed packages of hard white pills. Her face lit up, looking like Christmas had come early.

            “Where’d you get this?” She said.

            “The Wizard’s house,” Boss said. “Carlos had his crew check it out. Apparently Papa Wizard has cleared out of there but we don’t know if he’s out of Stilwater yet.”

            “I got people on him,” Carlos said. “Second we know where he is we can be on his ass.”

            “Well he’s not going back to his house,” Pierce said. “Considering Boss made us burn it down.”

            “He’s not going to need it much longer,” Boss said. “Because either he’s leaving or he’s dead.”

            “This will keep us going for a while,” Shaundi said. “But we need to be thinking about larger scale production, Boss. You don’t meet demand and there’s going to be a vacuum. You want to know why gangs keep getting in? _That’s_ why. If there’s demand people will start trying to supply.”

            “Yeah, yeah,” Boss said. “Are you going to drink _all_ my whiskey?” The last part was obviously directed at Carlos, who was still leaning back in the office chair with his feet up on the desk.

            “Swallowing pills dry is bad for you,” Carlos said.

            “Jesus Christ,” the Boss said, and not in a way that sounded affectionate. The unexpected criticism was harsh enough that it killed the humour of the room. Carlos looked away. The angle of his head now meant that his one dead, milky eye was looking right at Johnny. He suddenly remembered reading The Tell-Tale Heart in high school lit and felt slightly unsettled.

            Carlos’ phone went off, a sudden loud robotic chime. Carlos fumbled for it, managing to answer before it rang a second time. The conversation he had started with ‘where’ and ended immediately. He wasn’t one for small talk.

            “He’s in Misty Lane,” Carlos said. “He’s not moving so if we get there fast we can catch him before he gets out of his lieutenant’s house.”

            “Let’s go,” Boss said. “Johnny ride with me, Shaundi, you take Pierce. Take his truck. If there’s two of us it’ll be easier to stop him if he tries to run.”

All five of them made a move for the door but the Boss stopped in front of Carlos, putting a hand on his chest to block him.

“Not you,” Boss said.

            “What?” Carlos said, stunned and horror-stricken.

            “I don’t think you should be driving right now, do you?” The Boss said. The cold definitive tone of their voice left no room for arguments.

            Carlos’ shock let way to fury but he didn’t try to fight the Boss, standing alone in the office in silent, trembling anger. No one else said anything. No one else dared.

            The four of them walked out of the church, Pierce tossing Shaundi his car keys. He climbed into the back of the truck and Johnny saw the barrel of a sniper rifle on the backseat. The Boss walked to their own car, which was in bad need of a trip to Rim Jobs judging by the dents in the panelling. Driving like the Boss came with costs. Johnny got in the passenger seat without stopping to ask. It seemed like a safe assumption.

            The Boss led the way, tires screaming as they tore out of the Row and across the bridge to north Stilwater, taking the fastest route through Adept Way towards the Suburbs. Shaundi was managing to stay on their tail but only just, the Boss bullying their way through traffic with complete disregard for the rules of the road or the safety of others. They weren’t tense, completely at ease, enjoying themselves like it was a casual afternoon drive and not a race to kill a man.

            Johnny was excited.

            When they hit Misty Lane they saw a blue SUV splattered with the Vulture logo shoot past, making a break for the bridge to Ultor Dome. The Boss didn’t slow down, spinning the car round with speed that sent Johnny crashing into the side of the door.      

            “You gonna get us both killed!” he said.

            “I try,” the Boss said, not taking their eyes off the road.

            They were flying down the bridge then, running alongside the train tracks, Papa Wizard’s SUV in the outside lane. Johnny could see him in the backseat of the SUV, screaming at his lieutenants. The Boss stomped their foot on the accelerator, swerving the car to smash sideways against the SUV. The SUV rocked but kept all four tires on the road, the Boss’ smaller car lacking the weight to throw it off. The driver was trying to use speed in their favour but the Boss’ car could keep up easily, matching the blue car’s acceleration. Shaundi and Pierce were coming up behind them, leaving the SUV blocked into the one lane.

            Johnny reached an arm out of the window, taking potshots at the car, but the angle was making it difficult. The Boss was trying to shoot with one hand and steer with the other but it wasn’t going so well.

            “You need to learn to shoot straight,” Johnny said.

            “Fuckin’ gonna shoot _you_!”

            The Boss had to turn to avoid crashing directly into a car in front of them, the tires of Boss’ car slipping off the road and onto the train tracks. They spat furious epithets at the driver of the other car, haphazardly steering around them, trying not to lose too much speed. The SUV was taking advantage of the break in momentum, hurtling towards the end of the bridge. The Boss was fully on the train tracks now, and unhindered by other drivers they began to make up for lost time. This was a very temporary solution.

            “BOSS!” Johnny screamed as the train came hurtling towards them. The Boss swung the car out of the way, almost not fast enough, the train sheering paint off the backend of the car. The car flew off the tracks and landed on the road front wheels first, bouncing in a way that shook Johnny’s skull inside his head.

            They were off the bridge now and running by the Ultor Dome. The SUV turned right, trying to throw them off by heading unexpectedly through Pleasant View. The Boss turned too, but Shaundi and Pierce overshot. They were turning around but Johnny lost sight of them as they kept chasing the Vultures, carving through Pleasant View and into Frat Row.

            “Are they gonna be ok?” He said.

            “Who knows,” the Boss said. “Why the fuck aren’t you shooting?”

            Johnny tried to aim again, now they were in front of him, but wasn’t able to get a good shot in. The SUV turned left and then right, continuing to try and shake the Boss off their trail. It wasn’t working, all they were managing to do was slow themselves down. As they left Frat Row and entered Sommerset the Boss got close enough to rear-end them, driving their car into the back of the SUV with enough force to shatter the rear window. Papa Wizard looked afraid.

            Johnny heaved his torso through the window of the car, seating his ass on the window and hoping that the Boss wouldn’t drive them directly into a fucking wall. The wind was unbelievably strong at this speed and he was thankful for his shades. They were actually serving some kind of purpose. He opened fire on the Vultures, bullets tearing through metal and glass. The SUV tried to swing out of their path but ended up teetering dangerously on the edge of the road. The Boss sped up, trying to clip them and send them off the cliff bank, but the car slipped and suddenly span out of control. Johnny fell back inside the car, landing awkwardly and almost falling on top of Boss, who didn’t appreciate it.

            “Get off!” They shouted.

            “Learn how to drive!” He said, pushing away from them.

            “Learn how to _sit_!”

            The Boss wrangled the car back under control, seconds before Shaundi and Pierce tore past them, ripping the wing mirror off the side of the car. The Boss managed to get the car going again, clearly so angry that they were dangerously close to ripping the steering wheel out of the dashboard. The car engine roared as they chased down the SUV. Johnny slid out the window again, hanging on for dear life. His next shot missed. The SUV was getting dangerously far ahead, heading into Chinatown and beyond. Shaundi slammed the truck into the back of the SUV, caving in the back door, but the SUV swung to the right and hit them back. The truck skidded across the road, Shaundi losing momentary control.

            And then a purple convertible came to a stop in the middle of the road directly in front of the SUV. There was no time for the Vultures to do an emergency break and they ploughed straight into the side of the tiny purple car. The Boss had to swerve to avoid crashing straight into the back of the SUV, turning so violently that Johnny toppled out of the window and hit the ground. He bounced across the tarmac, feeling the lenses in his glasses shatter before he rolled to a stop. He dragged himself up onto his knees, not entirely convinced he was still alive. His legs still worked, at least. He heard a car door slam, the Boss walking towards him. They offered him a hand, pulling him to his feet. He leaned on their shoulder for a second to catch his breath, appreciating the support.  

            Carlos clambered out of the convertible. He brushed himself off quickly before shooting the driver of the SUV in the head. Shaundi and Pierce were still in the truck, but waiting at the side of the road. The look on Pierce’s face suggested he was keeping out of the Boss’ way for his own safety.

            “I told you to stay behind,” the Boss said, one hand still on Johnny’s arm. They were so angry they were shaking, he could feel it through the sleeve of his jacket. Or maybe he was the one shaking. It was hard to tell. His ears were ringing.

            “It’s a good thing I came,” Carlos said. “These assholes were getting away.”

            The Boss let go of Johnny and started storming across the road, broken glass crunching underfoot. Their march to rip Carlos’ head off his shoulders was interrupted when Papa Wizard burst out of the SUV and made a break for it. The old man made it a few feet before a bullet from Pierce’s rifle knocked his feet out from under him and he faceplanted the tarmac. The Boss turned to him instead, rolling him over with a nudge of their shoe.

            “You’re making a mistake,” Papa Wizard hissed through pain.

            “Is that right,” the Boss said. They pulled a pistol from their belt.

            “My friends aren’t going to be happy,” Papa Wizard said.

            “I’m not very happy with my friends right now, either,” the Boss said.

            “You’re going to regret this,” Papa Wizard said. He tried to sit up the Boss put a boot on his chest. “I’m not alone. I have contacts. I have suppliers. I-”

            “You talk too much,” the Boss said. The next bullet went through Papa Wizard’s skull.

            They looked up at Carlos, who was picking his way across chunks of metal that used to be attached to his car to reach them. The Boss looked like they were going to punch him in the face. Johnny was pretty sure they were going to punch him in the face. He limped to their side, a jolt of pain running through his leg. He tried to ignore it.

            “I told you to stay behind,” the Boss said to Carlos again.

            “I wasn’t going to stay at home and wait,” Carlos said. “I’m your right-hand man I _deserve-_ ”

            “You don’t _deserve_ shit!” The Boss said. “You _earn_ your position, you don’t get things handed to you.”

            “I’m not asking for a hand-out, I’m asking for respect,” Carlos said. “I’ve been with you from the start. I’ve always been fighting with you. You can’t just shut me out.” His voice almost pitched into a whine.

            The Boss didn’t say anything but the anger in them faded a little. There was a kind of keen desperation in Carlos’ face that triggered something in them. Pity, maybe. Shame.

            “Let’s go get a drink,” the Boss said, walking towards the truck. “I think we’ve all fucking earned that much.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Carlos... Don't do that. Carlos. Please Carlos.


	8. Maybe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which, in the short-term, things are okay.
> 
> Also on my [tumblr!](http://jonathan-gat.tumblr.com/post/129009529791/best-laid-plans-chapter-8)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey wow who was expecting a new chapter of this any time soon.... Not this guy. But holy shit, 100 kudos!!!! That's so many!!! I wrote all of this in pretty much one very long sitting and I think I've destroyed my hands.

“How did you end up as the designated driver?” Carlos asked. His eyes were barely open, voice hardly audible over the low humming of the engine, and he was looking up at Johnny with an unreadable expression. Mostly he seemed tired, on the verge of passing out. Johnny hadn’t even thought he could still coherently talk.

“Didn’t drink fast enough,” Johnny said lightly. In truth he didn’t want to get drunk with these people. Not yet, at least. There was some remnant of something that could be called common sense clinging on and it was telling him that getting catatonic with people he was lying to wasn’t going to do him any favours.

“You’re a weird dude, Johnny,” Carlos said, without identifiable disdain.

“Yeah, you’re hardly the boy next door yourself,” Johnny said.

He felt distant somehow, watching the dark road more carefully than he ever normally did, hands at two-and-ten, back poker straight. Maybe it was something to do with not having his glasses. His eyesight wasn’t that bad, things got a little blurry the closer they got to his face, but he wasn’t going to run them off the road. But it felt wrong, not having them there. They were a part of him.

The lights flashing over the roof of the car were intermittently lighting up the interior, casting a ghastly yellow hue over the inhabitants; Johnny, Carlos, and the unconscious Boss. Every time a light rolled over the top and flashed over the backseat Johnny found his eye drawn to the Boss, their head titled back against the headrest until he couldn’t see their face anymore. They were surprisingly lightweight with alcohol. They’d been blackout drunk before any of the others, slurring nonsense and laughing too hard, ready to start a fight with anyone who dared breathe in the wrong direction.

They’d looked Johnny right in the eye and said;

“Fucking Troy,” with a voice so suddenly melancholy it had chilled him. “I thought he was my boy.”

It was playing on him now, those words, trying to decipher every possible meaning. It was hard. He wasn’t good with subtlety. It was regret, and it was anger. But with what? Anger he had betrayed them? Anger they had had to kill him? Johnny didn’t really know and he couldn’t ask now, Boss snoring comfortably. Someone more paranoid might ask if it was too convenient, too coincidental that this would come up now. If Boss knew something about Johnny’s purpose. But Johnny tended to take people at face value and to him Boss’ words suggested nothing more than someone who had made mistakes. What those mistakes were was the real mystery.

He’d agreed to take the two of them, Carlos and the Boss, back to their respective homes. Pierce and Shaundi had gone their own ways much earlier in the evening. Or yesterday night, Johnny supposed. Although it never really felt like ‘tomorrow’ until after you’d slept. But it had been him, Carlos and the Boss in the bar in the end, the other two getting steadily drunker and drunker until it had dawned on him that they were in no state to look after themselves. They’d only left because the bar had closed at 3 AM, the last customers kicked out onto the street along with a couple of drunks who’d shambled off into the night on their own. It had fallen to Johnny to be the responsible one. Not a position he had ever been comfortable with, really. He wasn’t a natural leader. He liked having the cushion of knowing there was someone else in charge. Not being the one who had to make the difficult decisions.

He could have called a cab, he guessed. But that hadn’t really occurred to him until he was already coaxing the Boss into their car. Just automatically he had gone to do what he figured had to be the right thing. Johnny thought that was a virtue. Not being indecisive. Even if it meant he was stuck now in a car with someone who inexplicably despised him as his only companion.

“I don’t know why the Boss trusts you so much,” Carlos said.

“It must be my natural charisma,” Johnny said. He really didn’t want a fight. Not with Carlos. The idea of it just made him sad somehow. “I got a trustworthy face.”

Carlos made a noise that could have been a laugh or could have been an agonised groan.

“I gotta stop… Giving you a hard time…” he said.

Johnny shrugged. “Nothin’ personal, right?”

“There’s so many new Saints, you know? They all want to be the Boss’ best friend. I was there at the start. I helped remake the Saints. None of this… Woulda happened. Without me.” Carlos shifted in his chair, looking away from Johnny and out the window. “But now I’m just some other guy who wants to be the Boss’ best friend.”

This was making Johnny deeply uncomfortable.

“That’s… No…” he said limply, not sure had anything to add other than platitudes. A callous part of him thought that Carlos needed to fucking get on with shit and stop whining. He didn’t think that would help.

“My brother died for the Saints,” Carlos said. “I nearly died for the Saints. I got faith. That’s it. I got faith in this gang.”

“Then have some fuckin’ faith that they ain’t going to kick you out on your ass,” Johnny said.

Carlos looked back at him and smiled, scarred and twisted skin stretching painfully, and Johnny suddenly remembered that he’d liked Carlos at first sight. Liked something about the way he looked, so filled up with hate. Johnny wasn’t entirely sure why he’d thought that was a good thing.

The rest of the drive was held in silence, Carlos watching the road through one half-closed eye while the other eye, the blind and milky-white one, stared into nothing.

They reached Carlos’ place, an apartment in a big skyscraper of shiny new apartments Downtown, fancy and expensive and impersonal. Ironically, probably built in part by Ultor. Everything was these days.

“You gonna be okay?” Johnny said as Carlos heaved himself out of the car. It barely shifted when he moved. Kid didn’t weigh anything at all.

“In the short-term, probably,” Carlos said with the kind of humour that made Johnny faintly uneasy. He didn’t have time to ask Carlos what he meant by long term before Carlos shut the door, walking away and vanishing into the apartment building.

The Boss had cribs all over the city but Johnny was taking them back to the one in the Row. He didn’t have a real reason for picking that one. It wasn’t even the closest, he was vaguely aware they had one Downtown. But Saint’s Row was where he had decided to go, driving out of Filmore and down the long road to Adept Way. It was lighter here, artificially so, the yellow lights of skyscrapers and the harsh screaming colours of the neon signs making it always glow. Johnny could never live in Downtown, he thought. He liked how peaceful it was in the Suburbs. Maybe he was getting spoiled.

He had the radio on low, so quiet that he didn’t even realise what he was listening to was a commercial rather than some strange new song for a good long minute. He just didn’t like the silence, didn’t like listening to nothing but the engine humming and the Boss breathing softly in the backseat. It was too intimate somehow, showed a kind of trust in Johnny that he didn’t think he’d particularly earned. He liked the Boss, instinctively, but he wanted to not be close with them. There was a part of him actively wanting to push them away. Johnny would never admit to being scared of anything but he was scared of what would happen if the Boss was too close.

“Stop,” the Boss said. Johnny had to resist the urge to slam his foot on the break, managing to bring the car to a crawl without performing an emergency stop.

“Stop where?” He said.

“By the church,” the Boss said. He had no idea when they’d woken up. When he’d turned on the radio? When Carlos had slammed the door? Had they been awake the whole time, faking sleep to listen to what the others had to say?

Johnny pulled over by the front of the church, tires mounting the curb with an ugly thump. Maybe he wasn’t as a good a driver as he thought.

The Boss opened the car door and swung their legs out so they were on the ground but they didn’t move, staying seated in the back of the car, staring up at the church in silence. Johnny did the same, shoving his own door open and turning so his feet were on the sidewalk, facing out of the car.

“You going to give me some big emotional confession now?” Johnny said.

“Fuck no,” the Boss said.

“How come you wanted to stop?”

“I just wanted a look at it.”

If there were Saints in the church at this time, Johnny couldn’t see anyone. It was quiet, still. Gentrification of the Row had killed the nightlife and it had never come back, even with the Saints taking rightful ownership of the district. There was a peace to the night that made it feel safe. The Row had never felt safe when he had lived there, as a child. It had been a warzone back then, long before the Third Street Saints were on the scene. He supposed that was why his parents had wanted to leave.

“Why did you join the Saints?” Johnny said.

Boss shrugged. “Didn’t have anything else to do.”

“You with them for a long time before they vanished?”

“No. Did a lot very quickly.” They didn’t sound drunk.

“What happened?” Johnny said. “Why did they fall apart?”

He couldn’t see the Boss so well at this angle but he heard them moving around in the backseat, got the impression of discomfort.

“I don’t know,” they said eventually. “I wasn’t there. I got blown the fuck up.”

A memory rang in the back of Johnny’s mind, a voice on a tape recording. Troy screaming at someone about talking not setting off a goddamned bomb. That was what they had to do to finish off the Saints. Kill the Boss. Or whoever the Boss had been before they became the Boss. The linchpin that held the whole gang together even before they’d taken total control.

“What did you mean when you said Troy was your boy?” Johnny asked.

They looked at Johnny through the window of the car door, like a wild animal in a zoo staring through the safety glass of its cage. He didn’t know why that was the first image that came to mind but it seemed too right. A wild thing held in a too-small cage. Didn’t that just describe Boss to a T.

“He was my friend,” they said. “You knew him?”

“Yeah,” Johnny said. Shit. Needed to clarify that. “Back when he was in the Saints.”

“He got you too, huh?”

“You could say that.” Pause. “You know he died?”

“I heard. He didn’t deserve that.”

“People think you killed him.”

“No. We were still friends. Even after he went back to the police…” Boss stepped out of the car, leaving the conversation at that.

They walked up to the church, waiting in the doorway for Johnny to follow. He did, eventually, clambering out of the car and following them up inside.

It was quiet. There were two Saints inside, who looked up at Johnny and the Boss with the wide spooked eyes of children who had been interrupted in the middle of a conversation at the back of the class. They scuttled off, heading for one of the side doors, taking an air of embarrassment with them. Boss ignored them completely, walking to the spiral staircase instead. They and Johnny walked up the stairs to the first floor, the Boss walking without apparent purpose.

They stopped suddenly, at a bronze plaque on the wall. They pressed a button there, the crackle of a speaker coming to life before an audio recording began to play.

“During the reign of the 3rd Street Saints, this building was no stranger to violence and what few pews remained in the condemned church were often stained with blood. But what was the epicentre for violence in Saints Row has since become an icon for rebirth.”

“Julius was the leader before me,” the Boss said. “He ended up quitting. Same as the others.”

Johnny was cold. He knew that voice.

“He was a tour guide for Ultor until we took back the Row,” the Boss said. “He ran away when we did but I still know where he is. I’ve never spoken to him but –”

“You don’t know,” Johnny said, without being able to stop himself, realising it was a stupid fucking thing to say the second the words were out of his mouth.

“I don’t know what?” The Boss said, voice turning so icy that it froze to death any good humour left in the air.

Julius’ voice kept on talking in the background as Johnny tried to think of what to say, talking in a low soothing tone that failed to alleviate the grating feeling of fear growing in Johnny’s chest.

“--Ultor is proud to open these church doors once again,” Julius droned on.

“Julius blew up the boat,” Johnny said.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” The Boss said.

“Julius… Troy said he set off a bomb…”

Johnny didn’t know how he was going to explain any of this but he’d never been a good liar and he couldn’t possibly keep this from the Boss now. He could see the growing look of confusion and anger on Boss’ face as denial slipped into outrage and blind vengeful fury. Johnny couldn’t have kept this from the Boss. It would have been wrong.

“So what? You and Troy have been keeping this from me the whole time? What the fuck is going on, Johnny?” Boss said, coming dangerously close to breaking point.

“Me and Troy were friends,” Johnny said. This was so bad, this was so, so bad. “Before the Saints. Way back. Kids. Everyone said you killed him. I wanted to know if it was true.”

Boss stared at him and for a long, long moment he really believed they were going to kill him. He really thought there was a good chance they were going to murder him in the Saints’ own church.

“So now you know I didn’t,” they said. “Are you leaving?”

“No,” he said.

“Why didn’t you tell me Julius set off the bomb?” They said.

“I didn’t know who he was,” Johnny said.

They grunted, seemed satisfied by this but not happy. They looked away, gears in their mind turning over as they thought this through.

“I’m not a cop,” Johnny said.

“I fucking know that,” the Boss said, like they believed it, like any suggestion to the contrary was bordering on absurd.

They walked away from him, down the stairs and out of the church, yanked on the door of the car and then looked incensed when it was locked. They looked back at Johnny, waiting for him to unlock it, furious that he’d even dare to inconvenience them like this. They were so angry it was barely contained, a silent rage that radiated from them like heat from a fire. Johnny got into the passenger seat.

Boss started the car, turning away from the church so fast the tires screamed, the only squeal of traffic in the dead Row. They span towards the Red Light district, shooting straight out of Saint’s Row, foot slammed down on the accelerator.

“Where are we going?” Johnny said.

“Julius’ place,” the Boss said.

“Boss, I—”

“Shut up.”

He did. He didn’t know if Boss was done with him or what, but they weren’t telling him to leave and they didn’t look like they were going to kill him. He needed to leave. He knew he needed to leave. He’d screwed up beyond any belief. What was this bullshit about knowing Troy? Boss wasn’t even going to question this? At least they didn’t think he was a cop. He had that much going for him.

He could imagine Kinzie now, her voice reaching a fever-pitch of outrage. How could you be so stupid Johnny?! And You’re putting everyone at risk, Johnny! Ugh. He didn’t miss getting in trouble.

It was four o’clock in the morning but that was the perfect time for a house call, according to the Boss.

Julius’ house was in Sunnyvale and it was small, and unimpressive. It was not the kind of place you would so much as glance at if you happened to pass. It was not the house of a man who briefly ran the most successful gang in a city. It was the house of a man who lived in a quiet kind of fear. It did not take long, after Boss began beating their fist on the door, for Julius to answer it. He had probably been waiting for this. Waiting for a very long time.

Julius Little was average height and looked like a man who had lost a lot of weight very quickly. He did not look well, his eyes ringed with dark and his hair and beard grey. He couldn’t have been that old, at the most pushing fifty, but he looked older. It looked like he needed to sleep. He wasn’t surprised to see the Boss at all, face impassive – no, apathetic.

“You look different,” Julius said. “You do something with your hair?”

The Boss shoved him back, into the house. Johnny followed, shut the door behind him. Julius stumbled but stayed upright, watching the Boss with that same look of complete disinterest. It was like he had no stake in what was going on, none of it surprised him. A man watching a bad drama on TV, one he’s seen before, only because he can’t find the remote.

The hallway was dark, only lit by the upstairs landing light that trickled down the stairs, the faint strains of light that crept through the window in the living room and splayed out into the hall. It made everything that happened in the hallway highlighted at the edges, carefully edged out in streaks of white light while the rest fell into shadow.

Boss pulled a gun from their belt, holding it out in front of them with such casual laziness it looked like they were passing it to Julius. For the first time an expression flickered across his face, a look of slight indignity.

“You pullin’ a gun on me now?” He said, like he expected better.

“Well I didn’t have time to plant a bomb in your house so this’ll have to do,” Boss’ voice was steady, vindictive.

“You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” Julius said.

“Why don’t you educate me?”

Julius’ resistance didn’t hold. Maybe he’d been planning what he’d say now for a while. Maybe he didn’t care anymore.

“The Saints didn't solve a goddamn thing. Drugs were still being pushed, innocent people were still getting killed... All we did was turn into Vice Kings that wore purple.”

He reminded Johnny of Police Chief Forester, leaning over the desk and telling Hughes that they had absolutely been planning this undercover operation with the Saints for a long time. Like a person who talked in the mirror until they got the exact right tone to their voice, until they sounded just like how it played out in their head.

The Boss laughed. “Jesus Christ, you sound like a pussy.”

“I sound like somebody who’s not a sociopath.”

“You wanna be the killer with a conscience? Drop your flags and walk away. But you never should’ve come after me.”

“You tellin' me that if I told you it was over, you would have left it all behind?”

“Fuck no, this is my city.”

Julius had stopped being able to pretend he didn’t care. There was superiority in his tone, a sneer of anger and dismissal that pissed Johnny off as well as the Boss.

“Jesus, you haven't learned a goddamn thing,” he said. Johnny didn’t know what the Boss was supposed to have learned. Killing someone wasn’t an effective teaching method. He said nothing. This was not his fight.

“Wrong. I've learned that bein' in charge is better than bein' a bitch who keeps their mouth shut and does what they’re told,” the Boss was losing patience. Losing interest in this argument. “Your time ended long ago, old man. This is my city now.”

“You never would have had any of this if it weren’t for me,” Julius said.

Johnny had had a girlfriend once during college, in one of the times Between Aisha (years B.A.), who had a mother who described herself as ‘close’ to her daughter. Johnny had found that this meant constant invasive interrogations on the phone, visits without prior agreement, an angry demanding tone of voice. There was an insistence on constant respect, a desire for her to be given credit for being a mother and therefore a leader at all times. Should Johnny’s girlfriend ever falter in her duty as a child to be respectful and dutiful, the guilt would come down, wielded like a mace until it was clubbed into her. Even when the mother admitted her own mistakes, the daughter was expected to thank her for the good things she may or may not have done.  

They’d only dated six months. He didn’t know what had happened to the girl now. But he did know that the way the mother spoke then sounded exactly like Julius now. However much bad I do, you will respect the favours I have done for you.

“Fuck you,” Johnny said.

“Who the fuck are you?” Julius said.

“One of my lieutenants,” the Boss said. “And he’s not going to die, he’s not going to leave, and he’s not a fucking cop. You could learn something from that.”

Boss was still holding the gun, their finger on the trigger. They had it to Julius’ head, muzzle of the gun barely an inch away from his skull.

“Please,” Julius said. “You don’t know a thing about – ”

Whatever Julius was going to say, they were never going to find out. Whether Boss had pulled the trigger on purpose or their finger had twitched Johnny didn’t know but the gun cracked, and Julius stopped talking. He fell backwards, hitting the ground with a bang that made the Boss jump. They weren’t moving. Johnny still didn’t know if they’d shot on purpose. There was something so surprised about their reaction, like they hadn’t realised what they were doing.

Johnny put a hand on their elbow and they looked at him. They didn’t say anything at all.

When they went outside it was still dark. Dawn was coming but the sky was too thick with clouds for it to be visible. The Boss didn’t say anything at all. Johnny didn’t know if he should have been there. Maybe it should have been just the Boss and Julius. Maybe Johnny shouldn’t have said anything at all.

He didn’t know. The Boss’ shadow was long as they walked back to the car.

* * *

“They say they didn’t do it,” Johnny said. He watched Forester’s grainy webcam footage, the Chief shaking his head. Frustration was bubbling up inside Johnny’s chest.

“Did you get this on tape? Do you have any proof?” Forester said.

“You have any proof they did it?” Johnny said.

“It’s not good enough, Gat,” Forester said. “I don’t believe it for a minute. Get the truth out of them.”

“Sounds like there’s an ‘or else’ in there,” Johnny said.

Forester glared at Johnny. On his end, he was watching a sleep-deprived and increasingly inappropriate lieutenant talk to him like he’d never heard of the concept of respect. He wondered if Gat was on drugs. He wondered if the Saints put him on drugs and the force had lost him entirely. He wondered if this had ever been a good idea in the first place.

He knew it hadn’t.

“Man called Julius Little was found dead in his home this morning,” Forester said. “He was once aligned with the Third Street Saints, although all charges were dropped. You know anything about that?”

Johnny blinked, once. Didn’t he normally wear glasses?

“No,” Johnny said. He turned off the computer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Fucking Troy, I thought he was my boy" is a line said by MVoice 3 (Spanish voice) in Saints Row 2 when the Boss is drunk. Shout out to Boss Slim, belonging to a friend of mine, for alerting me to this. 
> 
> This chapter was actually ghost-written by my kitten
> 
> Thanks Ruby for your help. 
> 
> Be sure to check out my tumblr at jonathan-gat.tumblr.com! I post about nothing of any interest!


	9. Fire and Brimstone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Johnny makes a decision

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HA HA... Okay wow yeah six (?) months between chapters is the kind of shit authors should be hung for. In my defence... I am very lazy. The next chapter will not take six months.

There was a map of Stilwater laid out over the desk, large enough that the edges dangled off the sides of the table, pins jutting out at odd angles where they were barely stuck through the paper. Yellow and blue pins – yellow for the Devil’s Seven and blue for the Vultures – were scattered across areas of the map in a meaningless pattern. They tried to make their hideouts and warehouses spread apart, sticking not to any strict territory boundaries – none of the city was theirs to claim – but instead trying to make sure there was always somewhere else they could hide. It made Johnny think of cockroaches hiding in the gaps inside walls, scurrying further and further inside the house until the only thing left to do was poison the whole building. It was a grim image.

Carlos was slouched in the doorway, head low, muttering quietly to Shaundi as Johnny looked over the map and pretended not to be able to hear. Nothing they were saying was anything he needed to know. He could see plenty from the way Carlos’ head hung on his shoulders, fingers twisting against his shirt, Shaundi’s long silences and the way her eyes stayed locked on Carlos’ face with unusual focus. It told him there was something _intimate_ happening, and he would stay out of it if it cost him his life. He’d been called ‘emotionally dense’ in the past – and far worse – but as far as he was concerned, not crying like a little _bitch_ about your _feelings_ was a pretty superior position to be in. Eesh may had softened him up some since he was a kid, but at least he wasn’t going to fucking cry about it.

Pierce was sitting in a chair at the desk, tapping away on his phone with such rapid-fire speed that he had to have been texting sixty people at once. The map was his, the work was his. He claimed his leg kept him from doing much physical activity, but he worked hard and smart, and he got things done. He was good at what he did. He was also steadfastly ignoring Carlos, with the calmness of someone who knew when to get involved and when to shut up. They were all waiting on the Boss, wasting time until they could start getting down to work. As much as they could do on their own – nothing, in Johnny’s case – they couldn’t do anything without the Boss’ say-so. Johnny saw the sense in that. You needed to keep some kind of order, after all.

Carlos looked up at Johnny and forced a smile. Johnny smiled back, a kind of light relief that they’d managed to make peace and keep it. Stepping on everyone’s toes really wasn’t the best way to go about things. Not that he even knew what things he was trying to go about. He was wasting everyone’s time here; his own, Stilwater Police Department’s, and ultimately even the Saints’. Everything had devolved into the kind of mess that Johnny had given up on trying to order; the best thing was just to accept and move along.

The Boss’ office in the Church was always slightly colder than outside, the stone walls not built for warmth. It was always light in there, huge blue and yellow stained glass windows making the white stone glow. The room was an inharmonious mix of what Ultor thought would be pretty and the Saints’ own blend of learned practicality and ludicrous extravagance. The Boss’ desk was mahogany, the chairs were backed with purple velvet, but the desktop was scarred with rings from endless beer bottles and coffee cups, and the others were as likely to sit on the stacks of cardboard boxes as they were the overpriced chairs. Ultor had only been satisfied with pretty things, and only knew how to thrive surrounded by them. The Saints didn’t have that kind of pretense. Johnny liked that about them. He’d never been taken with any of Ultor’s rebuilding – no big secret there – and the shiny new police station had only ever felt uncomfortable to him. It had always seemed so telling to him, that Ultor had built them a new cosy police station in Saint’s Row, just so the police could have no dominion there at all.

The Boss arrived then, walking into the room and pushing past Carlos and Shaundi in the doorway. The Boss’ face was blank, their shoulders were back, their pose was confident in a very deliberate, measured fashion. They glanced up at Johnny, and for a brief second as their eyes met, he felt his chest tighten sharply, a kick of sudden sympathy. Neither of them spoke, even though Johnny felt compelled to say _something_ , like he had anything worth saying.

“You finally made it,” Pierce said, ready to keep things focused.

“I can come whenever I want,” the Boss said. “It’s the beauty of running my own gang.”

“It’d be nice to not leave us waiting,” Carlos said.

“I’m sure a lot of things would be _nice_ ,” the Boss said. They sat on the edge of the desk, looking down at the map, fingertips running around the edge of the coastline that made up their kingdom. “What you got for me Pierce?”

Pierce leaned on his walking stick, pulling himself out of his chair and walking to the table. He swept a hand over the map like he was trying to iron out the creases.

“Brimstone hasn’t been seen since she jumped the bus on the way to Stilwater Pen,” Pierce said. “We’ve been looking through the known Devil’s Seven hangouts, but there’s no sign of her yet. She’s gone way underground.”

“Keep looking,” the Boss said. “Put the squeeze on someone and they’ll talk. Keep finding all the Devil’s Seven warehouses and hangouts you can; me, and Johnny are going to keep cracking down on them.”

“If we raid every Devil’s Seven warehouse in the city,” Carlos said, “Brimstone is just going to hide better.”

“She can hide all she likes,” the Boss said. “This is my city. I want her to know that. There is _nowhere_ she can hide from the Saints.”

“We just better hope she doesn’t take anything out of the Vultures’ books,” Shaundi said.

“What have you got for me on the Vultures?”

“Vultures are leaving town, in droves. It’s like rats leaving a sinking ship. I got people trying to figure out where the hell they’re going, because it’s pretty fuckin’ suspicious.” Shaundi flicked one of the blue pins off the map, Pierce watching it sail across the office with mild disapproval. “We always knew the Vultures came to Stilwater as a complete group, but I hadn’t thought about where from. Finding out might be a good move.”

“Carlos, you still on the Vultures too?”

“My crew’s tearing through every Vulture hideout we can find,” Carlos said. “Should we keep going?”

“Yeah,” Boss said. “Have some fun with it.”

Carlos laughed gutturally. The law had been laid now, and they had their roles. Pierce was on research, Shaundi was on espionage, Carlos was the muscle. And Johnny was still shadowing the Boss, and he liked things that way. There was something that could be called a plan swarming in the back of Johnny’s mind. If he was going to stay undercover in the Saints – and he had no plans to leave – then he wasn’t going to be able to leave Brimstone alive long enough to talk to any of the Saints except himself.

 

* * *

 

 

Kinzie Kensington had left the FBI under circumstances she didn’t like to talk about, and she had no intention of leaving Stilwater PD the same way. But regardless of that, she wasn’t going to take Forester’s bullshit lying down. If he wasn’t going to help protect Johnny, she and Matt were going to have to do it by themselves, and she had every intention of doing whatever it took. Sometimes it took reading files on a case that wasn’t hers and she’d been told to stay away from. She sat in the archive room, reading everything they’d ever found on the Devil’s Seven. It wasn’t much, but it was more than she’d known.

Why Forester was so keen on keeping officers separated was something Kinzie had never understood. Most police departments weren’t so strictly segregated, but Forester seemed to find the idea of fraternisation abhorrent. It didn’t do a lot for friendships and trust, that was for sure. Kinzie didn’t know half the officers in the precinct, and that was ridiculous, even with the high turnover rate of Stilwater police officers. The fast turnover rate meant it was very easy to climb the ranks, but it also meant you were likely to end up with a station full of incompetents. So it was no mystery how Johnny Gat had ended up so high in authority.

Out of a station full of incompetents she didn’t know, Lieutenant Daisy Johnson was someone Kinzie was vaguely familiar with. She was nice. She’d actually managed to hold a position in the Stilwater PD for some time now, which was a minor accomplishment, even if she wasn’t particularly good at her job. She wasn’t terrible at it, she just wasn’t very _good_. Kinzie still liked her, because although Lieutenant Johnson wasn’t a good cop, she was one of the few Stilwater cops who cared about being a decent human being. So when Daisy joined Kinzie in the records room, Kinzie didn’t mind.

“Hi Kensington,” Daisy said. She made herself comfortable sitting at the little metal table opposite Kinzie, ignoring the piles of folders and files mounted up around them both. She didn’t seem to give a shit about anything Kinzie was looking at.

“Daisy,” Kinzie said.

“You’re still Gat’s handler, aren’t you?” She had a definite tone of someone who was asking for one reason only; good gossip.

“Until they pull him out of there,” Kinzie said.

She didn’t even know what case Johnson was working on right then, but she was guessing it wasn’t very interesting, or else Johnson wouldn’t be wasting her own time hanging out gossiping. Kinzie had never been much a fan of wasting time, hers or anyone else’s.

“I can’t believe they’re risking _another_ undercover operation in the Saints. There’s not a single undercover operation in the Saints that hasn’t gone wrong.”

“Yeah, Chief Bradshaw didn’t set a very good example,” Kinzie said, not looking up from Brimstone’s profile. “It seems pretty ironic to me, that we’re investigating his murder, the guy who is famous for going undercover in the Saints, but sending someone undercover into the Saints. And sending _Johnny_ , of all people.”

“Oh I didn’t even _mean_ Bradshaw,” Daisy said. “I mean sure, he was a bad start to a bad run. I meant the Steelport officer they sent in.”

Kinzie stopped looking through the folders, and looked up at Daisy. She wasn’t hesitating as much as she was too stunned to speak, but still too polite to gawp open-mouthed.

“What other officer?” She said.

“You didn’t know?” Daisy said. “Steelport PD put an officer undercover in the Third Street Saints two years ago. They lost contact with him a few months ago, but he’s alive. He’s still in the Saints right now.”

 

* * *

 

 

There were a million warehouses around Stilwater. There was a whole district full of them, some empty and some still in use, huge cavernous buildings amongst the factories and plants that produced fuck knows what. Johnny sure as hell didn’t know. He didn’t think anyone made anything in Stilwater; goods, produce, or money. Unless you were in crime. Crime paid pretty well.

The warehouse they were in was small and dirty, dusky in the evening light. The Boss kicked open the door, the lock inside rattling to the ground in a shower of rust and brittle metal. The door swayed a little as the Boss and Johnny walked inside, the street lamps outside penetrating the darkness inside through holes in the door like the light was being focused. Sharp little lasers of light making the shadows that filled up the warehouse look strangely dappled. The Boss walked ahead of Johnny, striding into the unknown with confidence like they were walking into their own living room. They glanced back at Johnny, over their shoulder, gave a small grin that showed a sliver of teeth and made Johnny grin back in a way he knew looked embarrassingly goofy, but he didn’t know if he cared or not. He cared what the Boss thought of him, though. He wanted them to like him with the kind of keenness that didn’t flatter.

“I miss your shades,” the Boss said. “They suited you.”

“Me too,” Johnny said. “I can’t see shit.”

“How you gonna see wearing sunglasses in the dark?”

“At least things wouldn’t get fuzzy when they get too close.”

“Blind as a bat.”

“Still kick your ass up and down this warehouse.”

“I’d like to see you try!”

“Maybe I will!”

The warehouse was a mess, filled with trash and rats, wind whining as it forced its way through the cracked glass of the windows that lined the main room. Downstairs was two big rooms, presumably once used to store dry goods. Considering the steady leak in the roof, it wasn’t hard to guess why it wasn’t used anymore. Light could barely get through the dirty brown-yellow glass, giving the building a smoky, foggy air. It was hard to see a foot in front of your face, but there wasn’t really anything worth seeing. There was nothing in the warehouse but dirty floors and empty boxes, smashed wood piling up around the edges of rooms. There was a lot of smashed wood, like someone had gone through a pile of shipping containers with a sledgehammer.

Maybe someone had. The Boss kicked a scrap of wood aside, the wet wood falling apart from the impact. There was nothing left to see, and they hadn’t exactly left a shipping invoice to check up on what was lost. But anyone with eyes could see that something had been here, maybe only moments before.

“We missed the party,” the Boss said.

“Damn,” Johnny said. “I knew we weren’t going to get Brimstone, but I was at least hoping I’d get to shoot somebody.”

The Boss nodded sympathetically. They picked up a piece of wood left on the ground and looked at the five-pointed star someone had sloppily carved into the side of the destroyed box.

“If the Devil’s Seven are cleaning house, someone’s telling them to,” the Boss said. “Brimstone’s still around, we just gotta figure out where. Until then, we keep hunting them down.”

“No one’s safe in your city,” Johnny said.

“No one’s safe in my city unless they’re on _my side_ ,” the Boss corrected.

“What about people who are on your side?” Johnny said. “You keep them safe?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothin’.”

“Is this about Troy?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“He was your friend. You came here to find out what happened to him. You don’t need to say nothing. I’m not as dumb as everyone thinks.”

“You said you didn’t kill him.”

“You believe me?”

“I trust you.”

They were surprised by that. They opened their mouth to speak but nothing came out, too stunned to bring themselves to speak. If there was one thing the Boss and Johnny had in common, it was the fact that neither of them knew how to _talk_.

“Troy saved my life once,” Boss said. “I was going to get shot through the head by some Vice King and he stopped them. I didn’t forget that. He was a cop, but I owed him, and I don’t think I ever paid him back.”

Johnny reached out then, put his hand on their arm, a scrap of physical comfort to offer. They moved their arm back and away, but only so they could take his hand in theirs, not squeezing it tight but just holding his fingers in their own. Nearly tender, hands rough from scarred skin but touch so hesitantly gentle that Johnny wanted to grab them and feel it all over, not enough to just have that one tiny piece of them.

The gunshot upstairs tore through the silence of the warehouse like they were in a vacuum and it was the first sound to ever be. They both turned for the stairs and ran without needing to speak, jumping up the worn metal steps two at a time and in near perfect sync. The upstairs hallway was so narrow they could barely stand side-by-side but they crashed on down, racing to the source of the sound and avoiding knocking each other down from sheer luck.

Upstairs was tiny, barely room for two offices, so tracking down the shooter didn’t take long. The Boss kicked open one of the office doors and then there they were, face to face with Brimstone sitting sprawled on the floor opposite the room from them.

She wasn’t dead yet, but she was bleeding heavily from a stomach wound, looking up at Boss and Gat with furious, scornful eyes. She looked confused, and that confusion outraged her, looking between the Boss and Johnny without an ability to see a real connection. She just sneered, like she wasn’t trying to hold her guts in with one hand.

“I always knew the cops were going to be the death of me,” she said, with a voice that was surprisingly strong for someone who was on the verge of death.

“Brimstone?” Boss said.

“I thought the Saints were gonna get me,” she said. “Like they got my brother. I thought I’d actually be safer with the cops. Can you believe that?”

“Never trust a cop,” the Boss said.

“I know. Looks like you can’t,” she said.

She didn’t get to say anything else at all, because the bullet that came next went right through her skull and took the last life she had left.

Johnny had been contemplating shooting her himself, but he hadn’t gotten beyond holding the gun in his hand. He stood, alongside the Boss, both of them staring in awed silence at the dead body of the girl they’d been looking for. Half a second later, Judas stepped out from behind the door and into their line of sight.

“I know you’re gonna want a good explanation for this one,” he said.

“Yeah,” the Boss said, their voice rising with indignation at the sight of someone wearing purple who wasn’t following their orders. “I’d like one.”

“Shame I don’t have one,” Judas said. He walked across the room, towards the window. He pulled it up, revealing a ten foot drop outside. “But that’s why I called the cops.”

“You did _what_?” Johnny said.

“Called the cops,” he said again.

Judas stepped right out the window like he was walking through a door. The Boss leapt across the room in a couple of steps, but Judas had hit the ground running, and he was already well on his way across the alley.

“What the fuck is going on?” Johnny said, looking at Brimstone. She still looked pissed as hell, even in death.

“I don’t know,” the Boss said. “But if the cops are really here then we got a problem.”

“We better move,” Johnny said.

“Who the fuck _was_ that?” Boss said.

“Judas,” Johnny said. “He’s one of Carlos’ boys.”

“Not fucking any more he isn’t.”

There weren’t any sirens, because the police had known better than that. Johnny wondered what Judas had told them. Maybe just that Brimstone was here with the leader of the Saints was enough. Johnny forgot sometimes that the cops made any attempt to catch the Saints at all, they spent so little time doing anything about them.

“What do you think are our chances if we jump out the window?” Boss said.

“Pretty good,” Johnny said. “I’ll go first and then I’ll catch you.”

“Fuck off. I’ll catch you.”

“Bull _shit_.”

“Watch me.”

“If I jump out the window on top of you, I’ll never fuckin’ watch you again.”

The Boss smiled with all teeth and looked like they were on the verge of saying something, but when there were footsteps on the stairs, they both knew they didn’t have much time for talk. Johnny was first out the window from virtue of reaching it before the Boss did, swinging his legs over the ledge and letting himself drop down.

He rolled with the fall, like he’d been trained to, landing safely and turning back in time to see the Boss jump after him. He lunged forwards, from instinct rather than from any actual desire to prove himself right – falling out a window had a habit of making you forget unimportant details like cocky little victories – and the Boss crashed into him like a tonne of bricks. He didn’t so much catch them as manage to slow their descent, bringing them both down onto the wet concrete.

“You fuckin’ idiot,” the Boss said, sounding like they were barely managing to choke back laughter.

“Let’s go,” Johnny said, dragging himself out from under – and over – the Boss and pulling them to their feet.

“Car’s on the side with all the cops,” Boss said. “We’re gonna have to get another one.”

“That should be hard for you.”

They both ran then, across the alley behind the warehouse, out through the narrow gap between buildings and towards the open road. Johnny hadn’t been anticipating a clean escape, he wasn’t surprised when there were people pursuing them on foot. He wasn’t surprised either, when the Boss turned and opened fire, taking down at least two officers in a couple of shots. They were good at what they did.

Everyone was so good at what they did; the Boss could fight and run and shoot like a demon made flesh. Carlos could take down anything, survive anything. Shaundi could fight and plan and think. Pierce could find anything, hunt down information and make connections. They were smart, they were dangerous people.

And Johnny, trapped on the dividing lines between sides, couldn’t do anything. He was real good at killing. That was all he really had to offer, that was all he believed he had ever had to offer anyone. He was cool, he was scary, but he was not versatile. He wasn’t even able to help now, knowing that every second he waited without helping the Boss made him more useless, made him less of a contribution to the team. In that moment, he made a very quick decision.

Johnny Gat raised his gun and shot one of his fellow officers of Stilwater Police Department right through the chest.

 

* * *

 

 

Johnny wasn’t really surprised when he came back to his apartment and found the front door open. There were a few ways this scenario could play out, but none of the plausible ones were very nice. In an ideal world he would open the door and find the Boss, but considering the Boss had just dropped him off outside and screamed up the street in a stolen blue Hollywood seemed incredibly unlikely. So it had to be someone else. Hopefully it wasn’t going to be someone who would immediately kill him, because that seemed incredibly unfair, and he didn’t like the idea of repeating whatever Troy had started exactly. Be the first Stilwater undercover officer _not_ to get murdered.

He pushed open the door slowly, back pressed to it, gun out. He was ready to put a bullet through the head of anyone inside, but the door opened onto an empty living room, showing him nothing but a room that looked exactly like he had left it. He considered this momentarily, snooping around the room to see if there was a chance the intruder was hiding under a sofa or behind the TV, but those turned out to be dead ends.

The next room he tried was the bedroom, walking in with his gun right out in front of him, ready to fire before he even had to speak, but it turned out not to be necessary.

“Hi Johnny,” Judas said, sitting on the bed and looking up at him from Johnny’s own laptop.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Johnny said.

“I have a lot of explaining to do,” Judas said. “Boss don’t have a great track record of listening to reason, but I was hoping an officer of the law would be a little more ready to hear me out.”

“What did you call me?” Johnny said.

“You’re a cop,” Judas said.

He shut the lid of Johnny’s laptop and tossed it across the room like it was a Frisbee. It hit the side of the closet and bounced back onto the ground. He stood up off the bed, walked towards Johnny until the two were nearly nose-to-nose. He had his hand out in front of him like he was trying to make sure Johnny could see he was unarmed at all times, as though that would save him.

“You have a lot of emails from your boss,” Judas said. “Some Kensington? I didn’t read ‘em, but she’s not happy. You should check your messages more often.”

“You know I’m a cop,” Johnny said.

“You got that fresh piggy stench,” Judas said. “Also you’re terrible at your job.”

“So what now?” Johnny said.

“I’m gonna explain a couple of things to you, and then you’re going to do what I say,” Judas said.

“You’re blackmailing me.”

“That’s a strong word.”

“I’m sorry,” Johnny said. “I’m not taking any risks.”

Judas realised what was about to happen a second before it did, but Johnny figured if he was as smart as he liked to believe, he should have known from the second he walked in. For the first time in his life, Johnny was beginning to get an idea of something more certain in his life. He couldn’t prove the Saints killed Troy, because the Boss hadn’t killed Troy, and there was nothing to prove. But if he was going to get stuck here, wasting time, he was going to fucking enjoy it. He wasn’t going to let it get compromised by someone else.

Either Judas had overestimated his abilities, or he’d underestimated Johnny’s determination to stay put. It didn’t matter, and Johnny didn’t care about the fine details of why Judas had fucked up. The truth was, Judas made a mistake somewhere, and he was about to end up paying a price for that. Judas didn’t have time to say much more than the first letters of _Wait!_ Before Johnny put a gun to his throat and fired.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have so many reasons for so many things but explaining them all would kind of kill a lot of suspense. Uh. Look forward to the next chapter, Johnny Makes Horrible Mistakes Again, and The Author Explains As Little As He Can Get Away With.
> 
> Hit me up on tumblr at [Saints-Row-2](http://saints-row-2.tumblr.com)


	10. It's Still Cheating if She's Not At Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things start going to shit very, very quickly

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to get the next chapter of this out sooner, but I've been a bit busy with a lot of other stuff. Mostly finishing my thesis. I did that so now I can do whatever the fuck I want, which is write fanfiction.

TWO YEARS AGO

Crowded round a table in the Broken Shillelagh, the six of them were crammed in elbow to elbow almost. Problem with sports bars on game night, they were full of people trying to watch the game and make as much noise as possible doing so. Judas could barely hear himself think, let alone hear anyone else over the sound of everyone hollering at the TV screen, but he didn’t regret coming here. They’d come here, all of them, every week for years. Better to keep living the tradition than having a weird, awkward night in some fancy restaurant they didn’t give a shit about. When a commercial break came on and the sound of shouting died down, Ben stood up and raised his beer above his head.

“I’d like to propose a toast to our good friend Judas,” Ben said, hand on his heart, over his Steelport PD badge, like he was about to launch into the national anthem. “It’s been wonderful knowing you Judas, and I hope you have a good time in Hell. Not sorry that we will _not_ be joining you.”

The others cheered, raising their own bottles and clinking them together while Judas just leaned back in his chair, wearing a wry smile. He waved the others down, waiting for them all to settle before he took the chance to speak.

“I’m not going to hell,” he said. “Stilwater is just another shitty Rust Belt city. Look at what I’m leaving behind! Steelport has the highest murder rate in the country.” He took a drink of beer and paused for effect. “Having the _second_ highest murder rate in the country is barely anything.”

“You know they got zombies down there? Real ones,” Sérgio said. “What kind of a city has a goddamn zombie problem?”

“They do not have real zombies,” Marla said. “What Judas is gonna have to watch out for is those _Third Street Saints_. Oooooh. You scared, Judas?”

She poked Judas in the ribs playfully, grinning when he brushed her hand away. He was definitely going to miss all of them, the little crew of friends he’d managed to put together, his own little clique. But he was going to miss her the most, not that he was going to say so. It felt cruel now, to open the question of _what are we?_ moments before leaving for who knows how long. The possibility of leaving for months, even a year, made him a little mournful. Work was work, he did what he was told to do, but this sucked.

“I’m not scared of some gangbangers,” Judas said. “I mean here, we’ve got real _organised_ crime here. Assholes in pink sweaters ain’t scary. Not when you compare ‘em to Morningstar.”

“Don’t underestimate the enemy,” Sérgio said. “Fatal mistake.”

“I think I’ll be alright,” Judas said.

“Yeah, I mean, it’s like you said Sérgio,” Beatriz said. “It’s the zombies Judas gotta watch out for.”

The commercial break over, the sound in the bar began to rise again until they were back to shouting at the tops of their lungs to get a word in. Sérgio tapped Judas on the arm, pointing to the front door of the bar, and then stood up. Sérgio walked outside and Judas followed suit, the two of them walking outside in the suddenly shocking silence of the mostly empty street.

Sérgio stood out on the sidewalk, a few feet away from the front door. He waited for Judas to walk up to him, put a friendly hand on Judas’ shoulder, pulled him in close in a way that was slightly too intense.

“I know you’re scared about going undercover,” Sérgio said, in his most comforting counsellor voice. “And I _know_ how desperate you are to make lieutenant.”

“I’m not scared-” Judas began.

“It’s _okay_ ,” Sérgio said. “I just want you to know, is that you aren’t going to be alone in Stilwater. You’re going to have to represent –

* * *

TODAY

Johnny sat heavily on his bed and stared at Judas’ dead body lying on the floor of his apartment. He wasn’t entirely sure what to do with it, so he’d called the Boss over to see if they had any better ideas than just leaving the body to rot on the bedroom carpet. He had heard that there were underground buildings underneath Bavogian Plaza, had some faint idea about dragging the body down there through the old abandoned mission house across the road from him, or something like that. That would get rid of the _body_ well enough, but it didn’t explain why any of it had happened. Because he couldn’t understand what the fuck Judas had been doing. Blackmailing him, sure, but for _who_?

He’d taken the initiative to look through Judas’ pockets, found keys, a switchblade, and a tatty leather wallet with $21.50, some Stilwater Transit tickets, and Judas’ ID. Johnny was pretty sure the ID was fake, looking at the grainy photo of Judas Santos, age 29 years, height 6-01, registered donor. The DOB was 04-01-1983, fucking April Fools’ Day, and for some reason that was what convinced Johnny it was fake. It just seemed like the kind of dumb joke Judas would have laughed at. Or Judas’ persona would have laughed at. Who knew how much of him – if any – had been real.

There was a knock at the door and fuck, he was so glad. Someone else could put the pieces together, he felt like he _should_ have a migraine, even if he didn’t _actually_ have a headache. He walked to the door of his apartment and pulled it open, found the Boss slouching against the doorframe. They took one of his hands, pulled him into a causal half-hug that Johnny tried not to make linger conspicuously long. It was harder than he liked to think about, to force himself away.

The Boss walked inside, and noticed Judas lying dead on the carpet almost immediately. They looked at Judas with what Johnny took to be disappointment – with him or Judas, he couldn’t necessarily say. Boss looked back at him over their shoulder, still frowning.

“Communications went well then,” they said.

“Yeah,” Johnny said. “That’s the thing. He’s been working for someone else. Or he was always was. But he wanted to blackmail me.”

Boss’ eyebrows shot up. “Blackmail you? Over _what_?”

“If I _wanted_ people to know,” Johnny said, “he wouldn’t be able to _blackmail_ me with it.”

The Boss decided not to push the subject. “Alright. So who was he working for?”

“He didn’t say,” Johnny said. “He just threatened me. So I shot him.”

“Fair.”

Boss stopped, looked at Judas thoughtfully. They approached the body, looking over Judas’ blank face like he would be able to answer them satisfactorily if they had any questions. Judas did not have anything in particular to say.

“He’s a cop,” Boss said.

“What the fuck?”

“Brimstone said earlier, cops would be the death of her,” Boss said. “She meant Judas.”

Johnny hadn’t even thought about it. At the time he hadn’t been thinking, but now he felt a sudden flutter of uncertainty; what if she had been talking about _him?_ She knew him, after all. But if they were all happy to believe she was talking about Judas – and maybe she had been – he wasn’t going to argue with them. It would be a very, very stupid argument to have.

“That explains how he knew shit about me,” Johnny said. “Motherfucker.”

Troy, Judas, and Johnny formed a very strange linked triangle. Troy’s death had brought Johnny undercover, Johnny had caused Judas’ death when undercover. How did Judas link in with all this? There was the idea he had been sent down on an impossible quest too, been absorbed into the Saints in the same way Johnny was now, and how Troy had nearly been those years ago. This recursive cycle of terrible cops and the big bad gang that ate them all. Troy had gone back to the police, but the Saints had haunted him all his life. Johnny knew, with uncomfortable certainty, how things were going to turn out for him.

He’d already made his choices. He’d killed two cops within a couple of hours of each other. He didn’t know if Forester was going to find out about either, but he was willing to bet the first murder had had enough witnesses to ensure that every officer in the station knew that Gat had finally snapped. But the truth was, he really didn’t care. When he considered his situation, having to leave the cops and his life with them behind, he felt nothing at all. Not the numbness of shock that left him unable to process what was happening – just a complete absence of anything other than disinterested acceptance, like he was finding out the results to a horse race he’d never bet on. It was true, but in the end, it just didn’t matter to him. He’d put his money down somewhere else.

“I can’t believe I let a fucking cop into the gang,” the Boss said, voice heavy with anger. “I thought I was better than this.”

Johnny put a hand on their shoulder, keeping his distance but so keenly desperate to be able to touch them, just comfort them for a moment. Any reason to be a little closer to them – or maybe that was too simple, too much about the physical, didn’t take into account the way their pain filled him sympathetic anger. He’d kill for them, if they asked him to. Admittedly, he liked killing, but the gesture was still the same.

“You’re better than everyone,” Johnny said.

“Even you?” Boss said, emotional dilemmas not enough to stop them from taking a chance to get a dig in at him.

“Definitely,” Johnny said, and meant it.

He took his hand off their shoulder, brushing against their arm before he took his hand back, moving with too much careful intent to pass off the contact as anything but deliberate. Boss said nothing, their own hand moving to take hold of the very tips of his fingers, like it was the most natural thing in the world to be holding onto Johnny’s hand.

“Still,” they said. “I should have known better.”

“You’re not a psychic,” Johnny said. “He was a professional, he had to hide this shit. You gonna start doing background checks on every Saint now?”

“I’m going to have to talk to the others about this,” Boss said. “See if anyone knows anything.”

“He worked for Carlos. You think Carlos knew anything?”

“No fucking way. If Carlos knew, he’d have told me. I can trust him with anything.”

Johnny saw no cause to argue. If Carlos was anything, he was painfully loyal.

“I can always trust my lieutenants,” Boss said. “And you.”

“When’s my promotion?” Johnny said.

“We’ll see,” Boss said.

The two of them were standing facing each other, the Boss’ head bowed to look at their hands. They were holding onto Johnny’s hand fully now, rubbing their thumb against his palm. He reached across, tilted their head up again, facing him. And, like it was the most natural thing in the world, he leant in and pressed his lips to theirs.

They kissed him back without hesitation, wrapping their arms around him and dragging him in for a kiss so hard it left them both breathless, his hands on the small of their back, in their hair, their hands gripping his back to make sure he was as close to them as he could be. They moved their lips across his face, kissing along the corner of his mouth and over his jaw, pushed their face into the crook of his neck and made him groan when their teeth dragged over his throat just a little. In the usual state of things, neither of them had the patience to be slow, grasping at each other like they’d been waiting five years for this.

“We gotta go somewhere else,” Johnny said. “I ain’t fucking with a dead body in the next room.”

“Someone’s making assumptions,” Boss said.

“Am I wrong?” Johnny said, grinning.

“No, let’s get out of here,” Boss said. “We can talk to the others in the morning.”

They kissed Johnny one last, lingering time, before they pulled away, back to just holding Johnny’s hand in theirs. Before they both left, they looked over their shoulder at him.

“This isn’t going to get you a promotion,” they said.

* * *

Kinzie stood in her office, staring out of the window and waiting for Johnny to answer the phone. Holding her cell phone to her ear, she’d already gotten the answering machine twice ( _I’m fucking busy_ – _beep_ ), but she wasn’t giving up. She could hear it ringing, and part of her was tempted to start yelling down the phone for him to pick up, like there was any possible way he could hear her. She didn’t need Matt or anyone else to hear her losing her shit in her office. Things were tense enough as it was, everyone in the department had heard through the grapevine what was going on because no one in Stilwater PD could keep quiet about anything at all.

This was turning out to be the exact kind of disaster she had known was going to happen all along, and being right was really, really making her angry.

When Johnny eventually picked up, he sounded half asleep and inappropriately annoyed. What right did he have to be angry at her? She was about ready to jump down the phone and throttle him.

“It’s not a good time,” he said, voice slurred with sleep.

“It’s not a good time?!” She said, trying to keep herself from shouting. “What the fuck did you _do,_ Johnny?”

“I’m just trying to stay good with the Saints,” he said.

“You _shot_ another officer,” Kinzie hissed. “Completely unprovoked.”

“They were chasing us.”

“Forester wants your head on a plate. You are so completely screwed Johnny, I don’t even know what to do.”

“Don’t do anything,” Johnny yawned. There was a faint noise in the background and he moved the phone away from his mouth to speak to someone else, Kinzie hearing every word, tone switching from disinterested to sickeningly gentle in a heartbeat. “Yeah, gimme a minute. I’ll be right back… Yo, shut up! I’m on the phone.”

“Are you with someone else?” She asked, the fury mounting inside her so fast she was almost shaking.

“I told you,” he said, “I’m _in good_ with the Saints.”

Kinzie snarled audibly, but Johnny didn’t seem to care even a little.

“I’m doing everything I can for you Johnny, but you’re _fucked_ ,” she said. “You’re going to lose everything. All of it.”

“Honestly,” he said, “I couldn’t give a shit.”

He hung up on her, leaving her in shocked, angry silence. She hadn’t even been able to warn him about the Steelport officer. But if he didn’t want her help, what she supposed to do? She had enough on her plate as it was. She needed to talk to Forester. Someone had to do their damn job around here.

* * *

“He was a _cop?!_ ”

Carlos was beyond furious; taking Judas’ betrayal as being _personal_ , his anger was directed both at Judas and himself. He was just about ready to start tipping over tables and throwing chairs around, and probably would have if they weren’t all crammed into the Boss’ office. Instead he just stood in the middle of the room and practically vibrated with angry energy.

“Why would the cops put someone undercover?” Pierce said. “What was he doing?”

“Trying to find out if you really killed Troy,” Johnny said.

“That could be _part_ of it,” Shaundi said, “but he’s been around way too long for that to be the only thing.”

“If he was after Devil’s Seven, maybe it was just some kinda covert gang busting operation,” Pierce said. “Working with us to get at them.”

“Judas did kill Brimstone’s brother,” Shaundi said. “Out of nowhere, just took the guy out. He does seem to have a vendetta.”

Johnny remembered then, long ago, when Brimstone had told him that a Saint had murdered her brother by blowing up his motorcycle. That felt like a whole other world.

“Why the hell would they bother going undercover to take out a gang?” The Boss said. “Just arrest them. Or if they wanted to work with us, Troy could have called me.”

That seemed to puncture the Boss’ mood a little, but they just sighed and shrugged it off, not dwelling on whatever was going on in their head at that moment. Johnny didn’t do anything, just nodded at them from his standing spot against the wall, but they nearly smiled at him.

“Maybe Troy wasn’t on board with it,” Pierce ventured. “Well, whatever he thought, the cops have been in on our shit for a while now.”

“But they haven’t been using any of it against us,” Carlos said.

“Which could mean they’re building up to something worse,” the Boss said.

“What the hell do we do if they are?” Shaundi said.

The Boss shrugged. “Deal with it.”

Johnny’s phone vibrated in his pocket.

* * *

Forester did not look happy when Kinzie burst into the kitchen and confronted him in the middle of trying to make a cup of coffee. He looked at her with so much distaste it was like he’d just found out she’d pissed in his mug, instead of failing to keep his ridiculous, shitty plans together. Of course she wasn’t going to keep Gat under control. He’d been suspended twice for fighting with other officers. He was reckless, violent, and prone to disobeying orders. What the _fuck_ Forester had been thinking was so out of her realm of imagination that she could have killed him.

“Kensington, I know what you’re going to say,” Forester said, “and quite frankly I’m not prepared to listen to pithy insults in the break room.”

“I’m not here to insult you,” Kinzie said. “I do have a few very important _questions_ for you as well.”

“Quite frankly, considering the _catastrophic_ failure of the undercover project you were meant to be handling, I don’t think you’ve got any right to be questioning me about anything,” Forester said. “I hope you understand that it’s very likely you’ll be getting a demotion. Excuse me.”

He tried to step around her and leave the break room, but she stepped right in front of him again, which had to be poking the sleeping bear somewhat, but she found it very hard to care. Forester gave her a look that could have blistered paint of steel, but Kinzie just held her chin up and stared him right in the eye.

“Why didn’t you brief me on the fact there was a Steelport officer undercover in the Saints _before_ you sent Gat under?” She said. “Why has nobody ever mentioned this fact to me?”

Forester took a deep breath, clutching at his mug of coffee as tightly as he could without shattering it. She knew, immediately, that he was about to lie to her. It was so painfully obvious that it was more insulting than the fact he hadn’t told her in the first place.

“Considering your contentious relationship with Steelport PD,” he said, “I felt it was better that you perhaps did not know.”

“You really think that the possibility I might let my personal feelings affect my work – which I take offence to by the way – was so great that it was better for me not to know _at all_ , and risk compromising another officer’s operation?” Kinzie said. “That’s how little you think of me?”

Forester gave up on being polite and just pushed right past Kinzie, forcing her out of his way so he could leave the break room. Undeterred, she followed him, keeping up with his powerwalk as he tried to get back to his own office.

“And that officer went AWOL two months ago, didn’t he?” Kinzie said. “ _Anything_ could have happened to him, but you chose not to inform me at all, and just leave me completely in the dark about something that could affect my own operation. What if the Saints killed him? They could easily do the same to Gat.”

“The Saints can do whatever they want to Gat,” Forester said. “They’ve already managed to make him into a criminal.”

Walking down the corridors towards Forester’s office at a pace that could nearly be called jogging, they were definitely attracting attention from everyone else they passed, but Kinzie didn’t really care. Maybe the humiliation would bully Forester into opening up a little bit. Or just get her fired, but at this point, she didn’t know how much she really wanted to stay in Stilwater at all.

“He was _already_ a criminal,” Kinzie said. “Which is why he shouldn’t have gone undercover in the first place. You put an unstable, uncontrollable officer, who had a history of violence, undercover in a gang known for being violent, uncontrollable, and completely unstoppable. Is it so surprising he liked it?”

Forester finally stopped, so suddenly that Kinzie nearly bounced off him. He took a sharp turn and walked into an empty conference room and waited until she followed him in, then shut the door. She kept a respectable distance between them, not entirely sure of what he was about to say to her. She did not particularly believe that she was actually about to get any answers.

“This department has been taking payoffs from the Saints for the entirety of Bradshaw’s tenancy as Chief,” Forester said, with an amount of measured control that had to have been causing him physical strain. “Almost every officer in this building takes money from Saints on a daily basis. Most of them _like_ the Saints. The Saints are public heroes. Gat is one of the only officers here with no history of corruption whatsoever. None. And for all appearances, he seemed to hate the Saints. I had no reason to believe that he would ever join their side.”

“So you took a gamble,” Kinzie said.

“Yes,” Forester said. “I took a gamble on an officer who had the perfect temperament to fit into the Saints, but had never shown any inclination to sympathise with them. That describes a very, very small number of officers under my command. I made do with what I had.”

“This operation was humiliatingly slapdash,” Kinzie said, as her phone began to vibrate in her pocket.

“Blame yourself,” Forester spat.

He slammed out of the conference room, but Kinzie didn’t bother to follow, just stayed behind to answer her phone.

“Where are you?” She said. “What did you get off Forester’s computer? He’s on his way back now.”

“I’m heading to the car park outside,” Matt said, sounding a little breathless on the phone, like he’d sprinted out of Forester’s office in a way that had to be incredibly suspicious. “I found something alright.”

“Good thinking going outside,” Kinzie said. “You never know who’s listening.”

She hung up, and then walked down to the ground floor and outside as naturally as she could manage, knowing all eyes were going to be on her regardless of what she did. Matt was already outside, pacing awkwardly by his car a few feet away. She joined him, trying not to look too over excited. Matt did not look excited. Matt looked borderline terrified.

“What did you get?” She said. “Anything about Troy?”

“Nothing,” Matt said. “He’s been wiped clean. Whoever covered that up did a good job.”

“What did you find then?” Kinzie said. He hadn’t brought any print outs, but she’d doubted he had the time. And she trusted him, anyway. He didn’t need to bring proof to her.

“You remember why we left Steelport?” Matt said.

“Yeah, it’s not like almost getting taken out by corrupt cops is something you forget very easily,” Kinzie said. “What are you trying to say?”

She didn’t know if he was trying to draw out the tension or if it was actually difficult for him to talk, but it took a while for Matt to summon up the ability to respond. He swallowed hard, but finally manged to spit it out.

“Forester’s working for Morningstar,” he said.

* * *

The text message on Johnny’s phone was from Aisha.

_Johnny come home_ , it said. _I need you._

He stared at the message, not sure what to make of it, before texting back _whats wrong_.

_Johnny please_ , came the reply a moment later. _I’m in trouble. Help me_.

It was the kind of thing that made you run for your fucking life. Johnny wasn’t able to offer much of an explanation before he sprinted out of the church, telling the others he’d ‘be back later’ and then running before anyone could ask him anything more. He wasn’t good enough of a liar to think of anything on the spot, and the panic gripping his heart was too much for him to think straight.

He was in the car so fast he nearly forgot to shut the door before he took off, screaming down the road and out of Saint’s Row far, far faster than the speed limit dictated was safe or sane. For the first time the idea that he might actually feel guilt for sleeping with the Boss cropped up in his mind. Oh Jesus, if something happened to her because he’d been fucking around with someone else, he’d never forgive himself. He’d always been stupid, but this was a level of stupidity that far outshone everything else he’d ever done. This was the closest he’d ever come to being genuinely really furious with himself, speeding across to the suburbs faster than he’d ever driven before.

It still seemed to take an absolutely inhuman amount of time to reach her house; as though in a nightmare of never-ending corridors, the roads seemed to stretch themselves far longer than they’d ever been, and it was always further before he’d be able to make it back home. He swerved to avoid a cop car and ignored when they half-heartedly flashed their lights at him, as though anyone in Stilwater had ever given a shit about speeding.

Reaching the suburbs, he almost completely lost control of the car in his attempt to swerve into the driveway of Aisha’s house, only just managing to come to a stop so sudden he nearly cracked his skull open on the steering wheel. He wished he wasn’t alone doing this, but as much as he loved the Boss and cared about the Saints, he couldn’t risk that. He just had to run in like some kind of knight in shitty armour and face down the dragon alone.

The front door of the house was open when he got there, and he slammed his way inside without thinking of being cautious. He had no idea what he was walking into, but the darkness of the house made his heart thunder even harder than it already had been.

“Eesh?” He said, before he noticed the man sitting on one of the couches in the sitting room.

There was no sign of Aisha, just the man sitting alone in the dark, waiting patiently. Johnny didn’t know what to say, staring at the stranger in dumbfounded silence. The man was dressed in a plain black suit, looked to be in his late forties, but was still relatively good looking. He smiled at Johnny when he finally noticed him, smile a little too wide for comfort.

“Who the fuck are you?” Johnny said, eventually. “Where the hell is Aisha?”

“Oh don’t worry, she’s absolutely fine,” the man said. “She’s been out of town since she got the news about your departure from the police. Went to stay with her sister. I guess she hasn’t been able to buy a new phone yet after she lost this one, but then again, as upset as she was, I wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t want to talk to you right now. I’m sure she’ll come around.”

He was holding a phone in his hand and it took Johnny a moment to realise it was Aisha’s, recognising the shiny gold phone case it was wearing. The man placed the phone carefully on the table.

“Yo, you better start talking soon-” Johnny said, taking a threatening step forwards.

“Give me a chance to speak, Jonathan,” the man said. “I wanted to thank you.”

“ _Thank_ me?” Johnny said, this entire thing becoming so baffling that he was seconds away from lashing out from sheer confusion.

“For killing Judas,” the man said. “He was really getting to be a thorn in my side.”

“Wha… Who _are_ you?”

“Of course, of course,” the man stood up and walked over to Johnny, offering him his hand. Johnny did not shake it. “My name is Sérgio Rosario. I work for the same people that Papa Wizard and Brimstone did. See, we had a plan. We wanted to expand our organisation, and start working in Stilwater. But do you know what would happen if we tried to take the Saints on head-on?”

“You’d die,” Johnny said.

“Exactly!” Sérgio said. “And you know what else? Stilwater _loves_ the Saints, Johnny! If we came in here and threw them over, people wouldn’t like us. So you know what the smarter thing to do is?”

“No?”

“No, I suppose you don’t, do you. It’s simple. The Saints don’t want to work with anyone else, so we have to get rid of them. So you put people undercover, and you rip them apart from the inside out.”

 Sérgio patted Johnny on the shoulder, and tried to smile in a way that Johnny assumed was meant to be comforting.

“Why else did you think they’d put the world’s biggest psychopath in the Saints?” Sérgio said, as though it was a loving compliment. “Judas was meant to tear the gang apart, but he was so weak he ended up deciding everyone there was his _friend_. You were meant to kill all of them.”

Johnny was about to shove Sérgio away, push him away and potentially punch him in the face until he stopped talking. And then he’d drag whatever was left to the Boss, and they could sort all this shit out, somehow. Maybe they’d find out he was a cop, but maybe he’d be able to prove he was a Saint deep down. There were ways it could work out. He wasn’t afraid.

He didn’t get to do any of that, because a few seconds later Sérgio stabbed him in the side with an eight-inch serrated knife. Johnny found his knees buckling underneath him as he clawed at Sérgio to try and stay standing, the pain in his side so strong he couldn’t stay upright.

“The police were going to fire you anyway,” Sérgio said, as though it excused anything.

He gently laid Johnny down on the floor and then dug in Johnny’s pocket for his cell phone, putting it in his own pocket. He kept smiling, as he gathered up Aisha’s phone as well, and quietly let himself out of the house without a further word. Johnny lay on the floor, and felt the blood running down his side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone who follows my tumblr (saints-row-2) might have heard of Sérgio, who has gone full circle from being a Saints Row fan character, to an oc, and back to a Saints Row fan character again. 
> 
> Anyway. Judas definitely was a traitor. Just y'know. Not a traitor to the people we were expecting. Guess it's a shame Johnny killed him.


End file.
